Waaagh! Ranma!
by rewind gone nuts
Summary: The remastered version of my original epic Ranma/Warhammer Fantasy crossover. A mishap with Akane sends Ranma into the Warhammer world, where he accidentally takes control of a tribe of Orcs. Pity the world, or pity Ranma...?
1. Chapter 1

**Waagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry. Many thanks to Kindred of Twilight for betaing._

A/N: Okay, here it is; the first chapter of the revised version of WAAAGH! Ranma! This new version will be a bit closer to the Warhammer fluff than the original- sorry for those fans of her, but that means Forna won't be appearing. Besides, this isn't really the sort of story to incorporate romance. I have other fanfics for that. Ranma won't be recruiting units of other races into his force this time either- they just didn't feel right. Individuals (the equivalent of special characters), however, are all right. I'm currently debating on whether or not to bring back Ubari the dwarf- if you want to see this guy make a comeback, then review and let me know.  
Also, the rating is currently at T, but the subject matter (occasional profanity & frequent gory violence) means that I won't hesitate to re-rate it as an M if people feel that is more appropriate.

Chapter 1: Ranma Gets Green

Akane looked down once again at the ornate ring now adorning her left thumb. That weird street vendor who'd given it to her had sworn that it would grant her a single wish, but she had to be careful what she wished for.

"I wish… I wish… now what should I wish for?"

"Akane! Hey Akane, wait up!"

"Ranma…" she growled. She and Ranma had been fighting all day- again. It started this morning, when Ranma refused to eat the breakfast she had begged Kasumi to allow her to make. Then, on the way to school, their argument about her cooking attempts had been interrupted by Shampoo, who Ranma had refused to give the boot despite the fact she'd glomped him yet again- the pervert. Couple this with the fact the two had started carrying out a "conversation" via thrown notes which had ended up in her being sent to stand in the hall and hold buckets for disrupting class, and the fact that at lunch Ranma had refused her cooking to go eat Ukyo's, and Akane was furious.

"Go away Ranma! I'm trying to decide what to use this ring on!"

"Come on Akane! You've got the cure to my curse right there in your hands! Wish me back to normal- come on, I'm begging ya!"

Now, this might seem a rather excessive bit of acting on Ranma's part, but let's not forget that this is the guy who actually went on a date with Tatewaki "Blue Blunder" Kuno in his girl-form to try and get a cure. If the choice was between his dignity and a cure, dignity would lose every time. Of course, the choice between a cure to his curse and protecting the innocent was a much harder choice. He was on Akane –not literally- from all sides, cajoling and pleading to the best of his ability (which, it has to be said, wasn't that great) to persuade her to use her wish to remove Jusenkyo's influence from him, unaware as always that he was trying to quench a fire with gasoline. The more he talked, the madder Akane got, and the madder she got, the more he talked until finally Akane's limited control snapped.

"I wish you'd just GO AWAY!" She screamed, and lashed out with her left hand to deliver a resounding slap to the cheek. Unfortunately for both of them, she failed to notice that the jewel in the ring on her thumb had begun to glow with a brilliant, blinding light until, at the exact moment she hit Ranma, it flashed with a sudden blinding explosion of brilliance. When Akane could see again, Ranma was gone and a quick glance at her thumb revealed that the once-gleaming jewel was now dead and cold. As she took in the empty street, a single word slipped from her lips, embodying Akane's reaction to perhaps the greatest mistake she had ever made in her life.

"Oops."

Ranma had no idea what was happening to him- he'd definitely felt Akane's hand impact his cheek, but there had been no pain. There was a sensation of falling, which wasn't all that unusual, but falling downwards instead of being propelled sideways was unusual. He couldn't open his eyes- when he dared; a brilliant flash of non-colour blinded him. Finally, the falling sensation stopped and he could "see" through his closed eyelids that the blinding light was gone, so he cautiously opened first one eye, then the other.

And his jaw promptly dropped in disbelief: instead of standing on a street in Nerima, he was floating in midair in the midst of some impossibly huge library. Books, parchments, scrolls and slabs, all bound in chains of fire and stacked on shelves that stretched into infinity in all directions, bizarre shapeless forms in varying hues and colours crawling all over them, tending the contents of the library like mad gardeners tending to a sprawling mess of weeds and thorns. Ranma's gaze took in the insane vista for an untold period of time before his eye finally fell upon the being who was clearly in charge here, a mountainous monstrosity that finally gave him some clue as to the true scale of this place.

Towering before him, so huge that Ranma and all of the motley crew referred to as the Nerima Wrecking Crew could have stood with room to spare on the palm of its hand, was a creature whose form was almost abstract enough to defy description. A lean, sinewy, roughly humanoid form, its puckered stump of a head protruding directly from between its shoulders, each of which was studded with a great, curling spike, the tips of which crackled with multi-coloured flames. Leering, mocking faces rippled across the entirety of its tremendous body, constantly rising and then sinking back into the flesh, whispering and cackling and gibbering to each other in an endless babble that, now he was aware of it, assaulted Ranma's ears. Picture a thousand Kodachis laughing in imperfect unison and you have some idea of the cacophony.

The creature's eyes -at least; the ones in its puckered face- weren't looking at Ranma but closed in deep concentration. Then, as if the thought had attracted them, they sprang open and fixed themselves upon Ranma. Ranma could only stare back, transfixed; it felt as though the thing's eyes were staring _into_ him- **through** him. As though they could peer through flesh and bone to see his thoughts and his soul. It was as if he was being flayed alive by the thing's gaze... and then... he was. Ranma's screams filled the still, silent air as the all-consuming pain washed over him, but the shapeless horrors crawling across the tomes paid him no heed. Had Ranma been able to see, he would have seen himself engulfed in colourless fire, a fire that suddenly surged away from his body and began to shift and change until it had formed a perfectly identical replica of him, an agonized Ranma forged from flame. A Ranma that began to solidify until where once there had been one Ranma, there now was two. The creature moved, just a twitch really, and the two Ranmas -whose mutual pain was now beginning to ebb away- where cast away. One hurtled off into the distance, while the other hurtled towards the floor and vanished. Tzeentch, Chaos God of Change, allowed himself a small flicker of satisfaction before returning his attention, once again, to the ever-shifting web of the futures...

Far away from the Realm of Chaos, yet also quite close to it (Space and Time are hard to judge when dealing with the Aethyr and the Materium), in the Middle Mountains of the Empire of Man, three months after Archaon's Storm of Chaos...

"C'mon! Who'z 'ard enuff? C'mon!" Roared Gragtar Fikskull, Big Boss of the Fikskull tribe of Orcs. Gragtar, like all Orc Bosses, had climbed to the top of his tribe's totem pole by being big enough and strong enough to beat up, intimidate or outright kill all the Orcs in his way. Unfortunately for the Fikskulls, while big and tough and strong and mean, Gragtar wasn't a very good leader. Beastmen, Chaos worshippers, rival Orc bands and Imperial soldiers had pushed the Fikskulls up into the more barren and inhospitable reaches of the mountains, killing off most of their numbers in the process.

Now a mere thirty greenskins remained of what had once been a hundred-strong tribe. Sensing the grumblings in the ranks, and seeing as how the survivors had bulked up as only orcs who've survived life-or-death confrontation do, Gragtar had paused in their wanderings to hand out the usual supply of handy beatings to ensure none of them got any funny ideas. He glowered at his followers as he booted the latest victim aside, none of them daring to meet his gaze.

"I'z da big boss! I'z da leader ov yooz lousy bunch'a gitz! Anywun what sayz uvverwize, c'mon out and fight me!"

A sudden sky-based rumble caught his attention and he unthinkingly looked up.

"Thunda? Wivvout a cloud in da sky?"

That was when he spotted the rapidly-approaching dot in the sky and, with a un-orcy yelp, threw himself aside just as it smashed like a catapult shot into the spot where he'd been standing.

As Gragtar hauled himself to his feet, he heard a groan coming from the small crater. But surely that was impossible? Not even an Orc could survive that sort of impact! Gragtar's jaw promptly dropped when a figure -a human, and a rather wimpy looking one at that- suddenly rose up from the crater.

"Ah, jeez, that's gonna leave a mark. Where am I anyway? What's going on?" Ranma asked. He blinked as he realised he was standing in the middle of forest on a mountain, surrounded by thirty hulking, green-skinned, square-jawed and, frankly, rather smelly creatures clad in bits and pieces of leather and rusty metal. "And who the heck are you lot?" He asked.

"Now, lessee... yer right where ya don't wanna be, we'z da orcs, yoo'z a stinkin' humie, and yoo'z gonna get yer arse kicked! Waaagh!!" Bellowed Gragtar as he yanked his choppa off his back and charged at the stunned human, intent on cutting him down where he stood. To Gragtar's immense surprise, the human weaved aside from his blow effortlessly before delivering a backhander that made even Gragtar's brains rattle in his skull. He stumbled back a few steps while the human slid into an unarmed fighting stance.

"Hey, what's yer problem greenie? I didn't do nothin' to you!"

Gratgar growled deep in his throat as he hefted his choppa, "My problem? Yoo'z my problem humie cause yoo'z still standing! Now stand still so I'ze can bury ya!" He flourished the weapon with a roar and charged, intending to bring the crudely forged blade down in an overhand chop that could splinter stone.

Ranma could have taken Gragtar down right then and there; this creature was leaving more gaps in his defences than Akane ever had. However, that wasn't Ranma's behavior in normal situations, and right now he was feeling more than willing to toy with an opponent to vent some of his own steam. Hey, he'd been sent who-knew-were and just subjected to intense physical torment (albeit without having a single mark left behind) he had a right to be feeling ticked!

Instead, he waited until 'just' the right moment, then sidestepped, allowing Gragtar's blow to whistle past harmlessly. With a roar the Orc boss hacked and slashed at him, Ranma slipping away from the lethal edge with seemingly mere inches to spare in every occasion, even going so far as to begin somersaulting around -or over- Gragtar. He had just landed behind Gragtar when, with a furious bellow, Gragtar spun around in a fast and rage-driven attack that surely had to cleave Ranma in half at the waist... right?

Wrong. Gragtar heard laughter and even some smatterings of applause from his boyz, a situation that puzzled him until he heard a faint whistle and looked around... to see the human perched casually on the back of his choppa. That was the last thing he saw before Ranma delivered a fierce kick to his face at point-blank range, sending Gragtar toppling unconscious to the earth with a tusk flying from his mouth. Ranma landed easily, having sprung off as his 'perch' fell, and made a show of dusting his hands off.

There was an eerie silence for several minutes as the Orcs took in the scene. Then, one of them piped up.

"So... does dat mean he'z da boss now?"

"Don't be an idjit! Course he ain't! No stinkin' humie can da boss!"

"Who yoo calling an idjit, idjit? 'E beat da old boss fair 'n' square, an' da rulz say dat any boy what can beat da boss is da boss."

"He's a humie! He's not a boy!" Roared the other Orc, and took a swing at the first orc to have spoken, punching him out. And then another orc, bigger than the one who'd just been hit, apparently took offense to that and punched the second orc. Which made a fourth orc start punching him, and then the whole gang was a writhing knot of flying fists, tusks and curses, arguments of "'e's da boss!" and "no 'e's not!" and "yes 'e iz!" being shouted at the tops of respective lungs.

Ranma watched the proceedings in disbelief, a small sweatdrop trickling down the back of his head. Even he and Ryoga didn't fall out that quickly. While Ranma was distracted, Gragtar stirred from his spot on the ground. Unable to find his choppa, and seeing the humie was distracted, he picked up a nearby tree branch and advanced on Ranma as silently as possible... which meant that it was really only due to the fact he was so close that he managed to get behind Ranma.

Gripping the branch in both hands, he raised it over his head and bashed the smart-arse human over the head with it as hard as he could. The crack of wood breaking echoed through the glade like a gunshot, actually startling the other orcs into stopping their brawl to see what the hell had happened. Gragtar boggled in disbelief as the human casually raised his head the slight distance it had bent from Gragtar's blow, a blow that had shattered the branch in half, then turned around to stare Gragtar right in the eyes... before he took advantage of Gragtar's shock to punch him out cold again.

The Orcs watched Gragtar fall again, before one bright spark spoke up.

"Da rulz say dat anyone what beats da boss iz da new boss, right?"

"Yeah." Chorused the others.

"But a humie can't be da boss, right?"

"Yeah."

"So den... don't dat mean dat whoever clobbers dat humie is da new boss?"

"Yeah! WAAAGH!!"

Ranma only had time to blink in confusion before he backflipped from a trio of large axes and landed in a stance as his eyes narrowed, "Oh, so that's how you want to do this huh? Fine by me." He moved.

The first orc in his path roared, sending spittle flying as he wildly slashed with an oversized knife as Ranma ducked and weaved before crouching under the greenskin's defence and sending his heel straight up, catching the hulk on the chin and staggering him before Ranma twisted the heel and pulled himself up as a group of swords landed where he had been crouched. Standing straight up as the orc staggered, Ranma raised his other leg and like he was marching in place, stomped several times before leaping off the orc as he collapsed.

A twist in mid-air avoided a hammer from one orc before Ranma grabbed the handle and then the wrist of another charging orc and as the pigtailed teen hit the ground, he began to spin, pulling the two orcs with him as Ranma continued to spin. Faster and faster he spun until the orcs felt their bodies leave the ground as Ranma carefully timed his spin as the mob drew back so that they wouldn't be hit by the spinning orcs. As the spin intensified, Ranma released the orc with the hammer and a split second later released the one with the choppa.

The results were brutal as the two orcs became missiles, smashing into the mob and bowling over most of the group as Ranma recovered, using the breathing space to regain his breath as the orcs groaned before one got to his feet and with a bellow charged Ranma. The two met in a fist-fight, Ranma dodging the greenskin's massive fists before he grabbed them and headbutted the orc. Skulls cracked audibly as Ranma's head met one that was just as hard and the two staggered backwards. Ranma recovered first and charged, the orc put up a weak defence but was felled as Ranma landed a spinning backhand and used the momentum to deliver a high roundhouse, knocking a tooth loose as the orc collapsed with a roaring groan

Ranma breathed hard before standing tall and calmly challenging, "Anyone else want to have a go at me?"

There was chorus of groans before the smarter orcs answered him with variants of "no boss, you da boss."

"What are you lot talking about? No, never mind, I probably don't wanna know. Can you at least tell me where I am?" Asked Ranma in an exasperated tone.

The orc he'd directed this final question to looked puzzled then shrugged before he responded as best he could. "Uh... here?"

"Terrific. I'd get more sense out of Kuno..." Ranma muttered to himself. Sensing the biggest orc was coming up behind him again, Ranma (who'd had enough), twisted his torso around sufficiently that he could grab him by the front of the shirt, before lifting him up and pile driving him head-first onto the ground, all in one swift movement.

"Are you gonna cut that out or what?" Ranma complained, more from instinct than any real belief it would help, before drawing his leg up and kicking his foe squre in the stomach, sending him shooting through the mud, still balanced on the top of his head, before he finally fell over flat on his back, the other orcs stepping aside to let him go past. Grumbling and muttering to himself, he turned, picked a direction at random, and walked off into the forest.

The orcs watched him go before, with a communal shrug, they picked themselves up and started shambling after him. Gragtar was last to get up, and watched them go. Normally, as ousted boss, he would have gone elsewhere and found another orc tribe to kick around. That was "Da Way". But he had been ousted by a stinking human- a never before situation. So, with a snarl, he stalked after them, intent on taking his revenge and reclaiming his leadership.

Ranma put up with the pack of noisy, greenskinned creatures lumbering along behind him for all of seven minutes. Then he stopped suddenly (causing many a minor collision as the orcs tried to repeat the gesture) before whirling on them.

"Why are you going this way?" He snapped impatiently.

"Koz we'z following yoo." Some orc wisecracked from a position of safe anonymity in the middle of the group

"...Why?" Ranma finally managed to ask.

"Koz yoo'z da boss. We foller yoo now. Dat's da rulz." Another said.

"I don't believe... I beat you all up, so now you're gonna listen to what I say?" Ranma asked incredulously.

"Dat's right." They chorused.

"Well, forget it! I don't need to be looking after anyone! I get into enough trouble on my own!"

During this spiel, Ranma had resumed walking, the orcs following behind, and hadn't been watching where he was going. When he turned to look, he found he had walked right into the midst of a band of what he could only describe as monsters, all of which were hefting weapons and expressions of incredulity- that were quickly changing to hostile opportunism.

Ranma could have made any of a number of pithy comments here, all of which would have been appropriate, but he settled for a single, simple, word that summed up his feelings on this, on recent events and his life in general.

"Fuck."

Ranma just had time to get into a defensive posture as, with a braying scream, the various monstrosities charged at him. From behind came a great bellow of "WAAAGH!!" as the orcs reacted by charging forth in answer, almost knocking into Ranma before he managed to leap up into a tree and get out of the way. The glade was turned into a scene of carnage as greenskins and goatmen (the closest general descriptor) slammed into each other like two loosely-assembled trains colliding into each other. The air was filled with a cacophony of screams, shouts, bellows, curses, bleats and barks as they tore and bashed at each other. As Ranma watched, one runty looking mutate managed to drive a rusty dagger into the side of an orc's head, only for the blade to snap off about halfway along its length. Apparently untroubled by the four inches or so of rusty metal rammed into its skull, the orc's jaws gaped as wide as possible before it chomped onto the runt's face in what almost looked like a parody of a kiss, thick tusks crushing bone and black gore spilling down the orc's front as it pulped the skull. It spat in disgust as the corpse dropped, then rejoined the fray.

But as well as runts, there were also bigger, brawnier creatures interspersed with the runty creatures, and these were giving the orcs much more trouble, seemingly being as tough, strong and brutal as the orcs themselves. It wasn't easy to put an orc down, but they were going down- three of them had already fallen. That was when Ranma's conscience began screaming at him to get it in gear; he didn't want to lead these things, but he had gotten them into this fight and it was his job to try and get them out of it. With that, he plunged from the tree, purposely landing with concussion-inducing force upon the head of a brawny that was ready to plunge a spear into an orc it had knocked down. Springing aside with his usual easy grace as it toppled, Ranma didn't even look back as he kicked out in midair, striking one opponent with dazing force in the face and using that to propel him into a third.

Even though this fight was clearly lethal, Ranma just couldn't bring himself to strike to kill. Of course, he had no such problem with disabling them, and there's a big difference between "alive" and "undamaged". One charging brawny was met with a straight arm punch to the solar plexus, near doubling it over as Ranma forced the air from its lungs (and more than likely broke a few ribs) before a high-kick to the jaw sent it practically somersaulting into the air, landing unconscious on the ground with a crash. Another came at him from the side, only for Ranma to seemingly slide underneath its striking arm before grabbing said arm with a grasp like iron. Push one way, pull the other, and the beastman screamed in pain as Ranma snapped the bones clean in half, pulling its arm in a direction even its Chaos-altered anatomy was never meant to go in.

Ranma let it go, howling to itself as it clutched its broken limb and staggered away, and turned his attention to a cluster of runts that had fenced some orc boy up against a tree. The greenskin snarled and flailed back at them as best it could, but their spears had more reach than he did, and so far he was covered in dozens of tiny wounds, seeping magenta blood, as though the creatures -being too weak and cowardly to kill him directly- were aiming to torment him to death. If that was their plan, they were sorely disappointed when Ranma smashed into them with all the lethality of an out-of-control tank, literally knocking them flying with the strength of his blows. The orc looked at Ranma, a resigned expectation on his face, though his expression changed to shock when Ranma ignored him to continue fighting. As he slid gracefully through the melee, he noted that the orcs were definately beginning to look like the winners, greenskinned brutes hacking swathes of carnage through the ranks of the weak and disorganized runts, allowing them to close in on the bigger, tougher mutants with greater numbers. Many of the goatmen were now beginning to break, running away from the battle and randomly into the trees. The orcs whooped and jeered as each one did so, which only furthered disheartened the survivors- and infuriated the beast that was clearly the leader.

"Stop! Come back! Cowards! Gor strong! Gor kill greenskin! Blood for blood god!" howled the beast, quite literally so with its final infuriated declaration. This helped Ranma pinpoint the thing at last; alone of the savage motley it was wearing armour, a ragtag asemblage of draping chainmail and plates of iron. It carried a long, gorespattered sword, having just wrenched it from the ribcage of an orc (which lay there twitching spasmodically for a few seconds before it casually chopped his head off) and unlike the others looked more like a wolf that had learned to walk on its hindlegs than some insane crossbreed between a man and a goat. It shook its gory sword above its horned, lupine head, screaming in fury.

"Blood for blood god!!"

And that was when Ranma hurled himself to challenge it; surely the others would scatter and run if this thing went down. Right?

Bringing it down proved to be harder than it seemed as the wolf-man proved itself to be as agile as Ranma and far tougher as the two fought, Ranma breaking bones and the wolf opening up cuts and slashes as the Orcs cheered for their boss. But the wolf-man was smiling.

"You holding back. You don't kill. That make you weak!" Ranma ignored the taunt as he continued to fight, but the wolf-man continued, "You think that no killing make you strong? Look around smoothskin, those you defeat, orcs kill!" Ranma allowed himself a glance just as one creature he had taken down tried to crawl away, when suddenly one of the orcs stepped over to it and with a raised boot, stomped its skull in with a spurt of gore.

That's when one of the Orcs suddenly shouted impatiently, "Whutchu waiting for Boss? Kill 'im so we'ze can get going and do some more fightin' already!" Ranma blinked as he dodged a sword; did these thing only care about fighting? He stumbled as his foot landed on a rock and Ranma saw the others were looking impatient as well. For a brief moment that, internally, felt like it lasted a lifetime, Ranma realized where he had seen that expression before. On his own face, as he waited for his opponent's next move. In a sudden flash of insight, he realized he really wasn't all that different from these orcs; he fought, he got impatient and he was always on the lookout for the next fight. So then, what stopped him from killing like these brutes did? He knew the answer: his honour and the fact that all of his previous fights weren't to the death. But this wasn't Nerima, he was stuck who knows where and fighting some freak in a forest who wanted to likely do something horrible to his corpse.

The wolf was about to strike when Ranma grabbed its wrist and twisted, breaking it horribly and eliciting a scream as Ranma grabbed the sword and slammed it into the creature's gut. Ranma stared into the beast's eyes and with a hard tug, the sword tore open the abdomen and as intestines slid out onto the grass, Ranma let go and allowed the body to follow, staring at it before he turned away silently.

Ranma inhaled deeply -through his mouth, as an unbelievably foul smell began wafting from the corpse and made nose-breathing impossible- in an attempt to quell his roiling stomach. For all his training to be a martial artist, Genma had never trained him to be a killer- he had never wanted to be a killer. Before he could dwell on that, however, he was almost deafened by a chorus of the now all-too-familiar battlecry:

"WAAAGH!"

"What! What is it? Who's attacking us?!" Ranma snapped, immediately and unthinkingly bringing the sword into a defensive position. As the orcs began crowding around him, laughing and slapping each other -and him too- on the back, he realised that the cry had been one of jubilation. All of the beast-things were dead or fled, leaving only the orcs on the battlefield. He staggered as one orc -he thought it was the one who he'd saved from the spear-wielding runts, but it had no wounds now- slapped him exuberantly on the back with a hearty guffaw.

"I knowed yoo woz da boss! Yoo dun led uz boyz but good!" He crowed.

"What are you talking about? I led you right into a fight!" Ranma protested. Another guffaw was his answer.

"Dat'z whut a boss iz supposed ta do! 'E'z supposed to find uz fights, an' win 'em too. We ain't had a victr'y in munfs, an' now yoo turnz up and givez uz wun in a coupla minutes? Yoo woz meant ta be da boss!"

Another bellow of joy rang out in response to his words, leaving Ranma feeling very confused but also, perhaps, a little pleased? At that, the orcs began dispersing, quite obviously intent of looting whatever valuables the mutants might have been carrying before they had died. Ranma watched them as they did so; he still wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of being anyone's leader, but they seemed happy enough to have him, and if there were more things like these wandering the woods, having some backup might be handy. He guessed he'd stick with them. For a while at least.

On the edge of the glade, Gragtar smouldered with fury as his tiny red eyes fixated themselves on the stinking humie that had taken his place. Worse than that, his boyz -Gragtar's boyz- were currently bathing in the simple, unrestrained pleasure of an orc that had just won a good scrap, so they weren't likely to try and kick the humie out for a while. Well, Gragtar wasn't going to take being usurped lying down, no sirree! He stopped for a second, distracted by a sudden twinge, and pawed clumsily at one shoulder, finally yanking free the top half of a spear that had been rammed there before it broke off in its wielder's hands. Right before Gragtar broke **him** in half. Gragtar idly tossed it aside, knowing that the quirks of biology that made orcs the hardest race in the world would fix him up right as rain in a few minutes, and resumed glaring at Ranma. Well, if this humie thought he was gonna get away with taking Gragtar's boyz, he had another think coming! Gragtar was gonna stick with this tribe, follow him to the ends of the world if he had to, and he would take his boyz back. By Gork and Mork, he swore it!

_And that's the first chapter done! We hope you enjoy this revised edition of Waaagh! Ranma! To those who were fans of the first edition, or simply my work in general, we have an offer: we need a beta for this story, so if anyone's interested, please leave a review or send me a PM._


	2. Chapter 2

**Waaagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry._

A/N: I'm glad to see that this remastered version is shaping up to equal its predecessor in its popularity. Just to clarify, though I appreciate the offers made, Gideon020 and I are currently quite satisfied with KindredofTwilight's work as a beta- the note about seeking a beta was an unintentional remnant, left behind by accident.

Chapter 2: Starting the Waaagh! Part 1

Ranma groaned as he finally, reluctantly woke up. For some reason, his body felt really sore- as if he hadn't slept on his usual futon. The explanation came when probing fingers touched cold, bare rock and his eyes, after they adjusted to the low light, revealed him to be sleeping in what was unmistakably a cave. A cave currently littered with about twenty-five hulking forms, in varying states of sleepiness. Ranma looked over his surroundings with a growing sense of dismay.

"Great. So it wasn't a dream."

He'd been hoping he'd just cooked up the events of yesterday, his teleportation, his fight, his unwitting ascension to leadership of a band of Orcs, inside of his head. That his memories of heading further down the mountains and settling into a conveniently spacious cave when night had fallen had just been dreams. No such luck. Hearing his stomach growling, and smelling meat cooking from a large fire that had been thrown together at the mouth of the cave, he got up and headed there- he didn't know what was cooking, but he hadn't eaten since lunchtime yesterday, and he was starving.

A small band of orcs was standing around the fire. Several were roughly gutting, jointing and skinning various woodland critters -a couple of wild boars, rabbits, several birds- and passing them to a smaller cluster, who promptly impaled them on stakes and held them into the fire that the third and smallest cluster was tending.

And not very well, it had to be said. Ranma didn't really know much about the local flora, but he had spent the vast majority of his life on the road and so he knew how to survive. Which meant, among other things, he knew how to build a fire- and lumping still soggy branches and green leaves on a load of dried moss was not a good way to build one. Great gouts of smoke gushed from the impromptu pyre, leaving the orcs nearby coughing and spluttering.

Ranma stepped over to the fire, deciding that getting warm was worth a little smoke inhalation as the orcs made way for him to sit down as the wood began to dry out enough to start burning with a flame and get some cooking done to the meat and soon the smell of cooking, and burning meat was filling the air along with plenty of thick smoke.

When the meat was cooked, then the grab for food began and Ranma's unique food-stealing skills came to the fore as he managed to grab much of the better looking pieces and avoid the ones with too much char on them, but strangely enough even though it was obvious Ranma was the one grabbing the best stuff, the other orcs didn't even react in their likely usually violent manner… maybe it was a prerogative for a boss to get the best stuff then?

Shaking his head and whacking the hand of some orc who thought he was sneaky enough to steal food, Ranma focused on eating as the fire crackled cheerfully even as it belched smoke into the air, earning coughs and wheezes while hands grabbed, slapped and punched to get the last available sticks.

As morning meal finished, one of the orcs tapped his mate on the shoulder, "Hey, yoo neva did finish dat story about how yoo beat dat humie wit' da big hamma usin' a stick."

The other orc looked confused and then the light of remembrance hit and soon he was launching into a story, which Ranma managed to work out was about how the orc had somehow beat up a blacksmith during a raid with a plank of wood after losing his sword.

This was soon met by more stories, each one larger and more over the top than the last.

Ranma sat and listened as his new "followers" (not that he wanted them to follow him anywhere) bragged to each other of their exploits. Now, normally, Ranma was actually a fairly modest individual- though he didn't hesitate to trash-talk his opponents in battle, boasting of his prowess wasn't something he did as a general rule. Still, it was a way to pass the time, and it wasn't as though he didn't have his own stories to share.

Ranma waited until the latest orc finished his story, about a duel with a self-proclaimed swordmaster, before he spoke up.

"You call that a fight? Where I come from, someone like that wouldn't have even be a tussle."

"Oh yeah? Well, ain't yoo da tuff wun. Yoo sayin' yoo've fought better swordboyz?"

"Better? Boy, I used to start each day off by kicking the ass of a guy so good with a sword, he could smash rocks with it."

"Ah, I could do that!" drawled one orc.

"Boulders the size of your self? From a hundred steps away? Just by stabbing yer sword at it?"

"Aw, cummon, do we look like we just fell off the turnip cart? Nobody's that good!"

"I'm serious! This guy could smash stone and cut through trees with one swipe- and he used a bokken."

At the look of confusion, he remembered that this was an entirely different world. "A wooden practice sword." He added, for explanation.

"And yoo beat 'im?"

"Just about every morning- guy was a pushover by my standards. Besides, he's kind of... stupid."

"How stupid?"

"This bozo was so stupid, if you chopped his head off, he'd be twice as smart!" Ranma replied, then wondered for a second just where that had come from- that wasn't his usual line of humor. Still, the orcs seemed to think it was funny; they burst out laughing, slapping each other's shoulders and with glee.

"So, if that boy was a grot, who didja go to fer a real right?" Some orc asked.

"Well, there's always Mousse- guy carried more weapons than, well... you lot."

"More weapons than us?" The orcs said, sounding somewhat offended by the idea.

"Yep. He practices a style called Hidden Weapons; he wears these goofy-looking robes and he pulls out all sorts of junk from them. Not just swords and clubs and axes either- which makes him kind of hard to take serious. I mean, what self-respecting fighter uses kettles, chamberpots and combs as throwing weapons?" Ranma said, only half-joking.

"The lad'z a humie scraplauncher!" Marvelled one orc.

"Scraplauncher?" Ranma asked.

"These junky catapult-fings. Them... wotsits, Gnoblars build 'em. Throw all sorts of junk atcher- my cousin Ded'ed died from a horseshoe to da face. Splattered 'iz brainz everywhere- I fink I still got some..." The orc began rooting around in his pockets, prompting Ranma and the nearby orcs to recoil.

"Uh, that's okay you don't need to show us."

The orc shrugged but he stopped searching his pockets all the same as Ranma sat down and began searching his memory for another fight, nodding to himself when he remembered one, "Speaking of throwing stuff, I remember this fight I had with one of my more tougher opponents, some guy named Ryoga. He learned this technique that allowed him to toss these really powerful blasts of green light. I gotta admit, that was a toughie, until I worked out the trick."

Several of the orcs openly scoffed, one brave wit jokingly saying, "Yeh sure boss, pull the uvver one."

Ranma's face was impassive but he raised a palm and to the shock of the orcs, a ball of blue-white light began to form, growing in size until it was as large as an orc's meaty fist, and then with a flick of his wrist he sent the ball flying out the cave entrance and into a large tree, where with a explosion like a thunderclap, the massive evergreen creaked and fell with a thunderous crash as birds vacated their roosts.

Looking back at the other orcs, Ranma simply raised an eyebrow and the boyz coughed and looked away, though story telling was now officially over since no one could top what Ranma had done.

Ranma didn't show it, but he was kind of sorry that he'd stopped the talk now- it had actually been kind of... **cozy**, was the only word he could think of to describe it. He allowed the silence to linger for a minute or so, then spoke.

"So, what do you lot normally do?"

This led to a lot of confused looks and massed shrugging before some orc spoke up.

"We pick a fight."

The words hung in the air for a moment as Ranma fully digested them, then he felt compelled to break the silence. "With who?"

"Who ya got?" The orc nearest him said immediately, in what would have been a very effective snapback if he hadn't been completely serious.

Ranma said nothing. It wasn't like he couldn't understand where they were coming from- truth be told, there were times back in Nerima when he felt he was walking around with a target painted on his face. He suddenly wondered if he should be worried that he actually did understand these things... Pushing that down in the depths of his mind, he stood up.

"Well, while I ain't looking for trouble, I gotta better things to do than to sit around here all day."

Almost as if the universe had been waiting for that, thunder suddenly boomed and droplets of rain began to fall from the overcast skies- erratically at first, but with the menacing potential of a full-blown deluge. Ranma looked up, repressed the urge to cuss, then turned around and headed back inside.

"Then again, I guess I can stay here until the rain's over."

The Fikskulls watched him go in puzzlement. So it was starting to rain; what was the big deal? Eh, humies were weird, whether or not they were wimpy little grots. But then again, orcs didn't really like slogging through pouring rain even to get to a fight, and as no one particularly wanted to get beat down again this soon, they decided not to question Ranma's authority by leaving on their own and trooped in after him.

Of course, being stuck in a cave while outside quickly turned into a thundering storm soon turned boring. There wasn't really enough room here for Ranma to train, he didn't have any manga on him, so he resigned himself to just being bored. Around him, the orcs looked even worse off than he was- but then, they seemed to have rather short attention spans anyway. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one of them dig into its pockets before it triumphantly pulled out a set of dice. Said orc quickly became the center of attention as it started an impromptu game of dice that initially engulfed all thirty Fikskulls before a number of others found their own dice, causing the mob to split into a number of smaller clusters.

Ranma watched them as they began gambling, with bets being placed on all sorts of things from coins to weapons to broken baubles to knocked-out teeth, envying them their distraction. He had learned his lesson from the Gambling King, thank you- he and gambling games didn't mix. Kind of odd that he could bluff people pretty damn well in any other arena... but anyway, he didn't even have anything to bet but his clothes. And he was not putting them up for stake.

So, with nothing else to do, Ranma decided to try turning his mind inward- meditation wasn't exactly his favorite thing to do, he much rather practice his moves than sit around contemplating, but that didn't mean he wasn't any good at it. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed his muscles and begin to let his mind clear. This dimming of temporal awareness meant that he had no idea how long, if at all, he'd been meditating before he was rudely jolted awake.

"I saw dat, ya cheatin' git!" bellowed one orc.

"Whut're yoo talkin' abawt, ya stoopid zogger!" snarled his opponent.

"Yoo been usin' loaded dice, ya filthy bastard!" Roared the first, who promptly punched the second in the face then jumped on him, setting the two rolling around and around while the others cheered and called encouragement to whichever they sided with. Ranma groaned to himself, but figured that he had better sort things out before they killed each other, standing up and springing easily over to the squabbling pair.

"Break it up! Break it up! Hey, you listening ta me? I said break it UP!" Ranma snapped, emphasizing his words by grabbing both orcs by the back of the head and smashing their faces into each other with... not all his might, because that would probably be fatal, but enough force that the sounds of their skulls cracking together echoed through the chamber and their noses gushed magenta blood as they were crushed on each other's face. Flowing with the momentum, Ranma threw them both aside, the other orcs quietening down as he glowered down at them.

"Give me the dice." he said, coolly and calmly.

Neither orc moved.

"Have you gone deaf? Gimme the dice!"

One of the watching orcs stepped forward, scooped up the dice from the ground and tentatively held them out to Ranma, who repressed the urge to blush in embarrasment and instead snatched them from the orc's hand. Crouching down, he rolled the dice... a 7. When the next six rolls all produced a 7, it was clear to everyone that the orcs' quarrel had been legitimate. Staring fiercely at the guilty orc, he snatched up the dice and squeezed them in his fist until they crunched into powdered bone, dramatically opening his hand to let the resultant off-white dust spiral pathetically down onto the floor. Not saying anything, he sprang back to his chosen perch and settled back down. As he did, the orcs quietly resumed playing, the guilty orc revealing the original, non-loaded dice he had been using and which he'd slipped up his sleeve in order to use the loaded ones. As the game got back into full swing, Ranma allowed himself a wry smile.

"This leader gig isn't so hard after all."

With that, he resumed meditation... only to be jolted out of it again by another fight.

"Zoggin' hell" He murmured, unthinkingly using the orc curse word, and sprang over to break it up again.

After breaking up a few more fights, and breaking a few bones which was a clear indicator on how annoyed Ranma was, the pigtailed martial artist and unwilling orc boss retreated back into the caves to the perch where he had hoped to get some sleep but with breaking up fights and cracking heads Ranma was now too pumped up to just get some sleep so he wracked his head for something to do until he came to the idea of checking his stuffspace pockets to see if they still worked.

The idea for the dimensional pockets that just about every martial artist -including their main user, the Chinese Amazon warrior known as Mousse- called 'Stuffspace', was to create a place that could store anything and could only be accessed by the one who created it. Whatever the trip to this place had done to Ranma, it was most evident in this technique as Ranma initially met with a fair amount of resistance in opening the pocket; either it opened a hole that started sucking everything in or it simply created a burst of light and vanished. Not one to be discouraged, Ranma tried again and again until finally he managed to open a hole and his schoolbooks along with an empty bento fell out.

Picking up the bento and giving it a once over before once again opening the pocket and tossing it in, Ranma looked over his school books and then out at the massive deluge outside that showed little sign of letting up before, with a shrug, Ranma did something that his teachers at Furinkan High would have paid through the nose to see; Ranma Saotome started reading his school books.

Several hours passed in relative silence, as silent as listening to the loud shouts of bets and counter-bets of gambling orcs could be, and Ranma realized that he could actually make use of the stuff in his school books when it came to his new...followers? Regardless, if he could educate these brutes then at least he could stand to watch them fight when they likely went up against a more deadly opponent than mutant animal-people. But, just like back in Nerima, reading all that dry educational material soon began to affect Ranma and in a matter of minutes, he was out like a light, snoring softly with his Chemistry text-book covering his face and his back against a sturdy stalagmite.

With their boss asleep, the orcs gambled on unaware that someone had managed to sneak past them.

Gragtar grinned darkly, idly tapping the head of his new war hammer (which he'd traded his old choppa for) in his meaty palm. He couldn't be boss until he beat the boy who was already boss... but nobody said he had to beat him in a fair fight! Slinking as silently as a 7-foot tall 275-kilo mass of muscle and malice as could, he crept up to Ranma. Ranma, whose ability to sleep through just about anything was one of his few unknown talents (alongside his talent for cooking), snoozed on placidly, unaware of Gragtar's looming presence. The orc sneered, spat on each palm, rubbed them together, then gripped his weapon's hilt with both hands, lifted it over his head and swung it down with all his might!

And succeeded only in making a small impact crater where Ranma's head had been, the human having rolled aside at just the last second. He blinked in confusion, then shrugged it off and tried again. Another miss. A third try was just as bad. Furious now (as though an orc needed much encouragement to get angry), Gragtar began pounding away frenziedly with the hammer, doing the best he could to imitate a jackhammer and hopefully crush Ranma's head to a bloody pulp, throwing up a small cloud of dust in the process. Gragtar finally stopped, chest heaving with exertion, and allowed the dust to clear. No blood anywhere.

"Dis humie's slipperier asleep den when 'e's awake!"

Someone tapped Gragtar on the shoulder at that point.

"Whut?" Gragtar snarled, currently focused on finding out where Ranma had gone and thus ignoring whoever was standing behind him. Ranma gave a dark smirk at the ex-boss's antics.

"And **stay out!**" Ranma shouted, hurling Gragtar through the air like a living spear to smash headfirst into a sapling, at the foot of which he promptly collapsed unconscious. There was a chorus of applause from the other Fikskulls; orcs just loved quality entertainment!

With the immediate excitement over, the Fikskulls settled back down to their continued games of dice, mixed with the odd brawl. So long as they didn't get too rowdy, Ranma ignored them, instead resuming reading his Chemistry book. This segment on producing gunpowder looked particularly interesting...

This distracted state, coupled with the fierce storm currently raging outside, meant that it wasn't any real surprise that nobody noticed the intruders until they had actually gotten into the cave, whereupon the Fikskulls promptly froze, waiting to see what would happen.

"Where's yer boss?" Snarled one of the figures, a quintet of hulking (even more so than usual) orcs clad in crude armor, bearing a number of weapons (at least three each) and with a skin tone of green so dark it was almost black.

"Where iz 'e? Dis iz a challenge!" The speaker snarled again in its deep, guttural voice.

Ranma quietly put his book aside and headed forward, struck simultaneously by feelings of foreboding and deja vu. Standing in front of the five strangers, he put his hands on his hips and looked up to stare them in the eye.

"Whatcha want?"

"Don't get mouthy wif me, slave! Where's da boss?" Grunted the largest of the challengers.

"Slave?" Ranma's eye twitched at that. "Listen here buster, call me that again and I'll break that club of yours over yer head! I'm the boss here- so whatcha want?"

"Yoo? Da boss of dese here boyz? What kinda runts iz yoo lot? Call yerselves orcs! Well, I'll break yoo across me knee, humie, den we'll show dese here boyz what it means ta be orcs!"

"Go right ahead and try. In fact, I'll let you have the first strike." Ranma sneered at his opponent, who towered head and shoulders over him. Rumbling deep in his chest with a sound like stone grinding on stone, the club-wielding black orc strode forward, hoisting his weapon and lashing out in a two-handed strike straight at Ranma's head.

Ranma calmly leaned over the side, allowing the obviously projected blow to whistle harmlessly past. "That's one."

Grunting to itself, the orc made a diagonal stroke, which Ranma easily sidestepped. "That's two."

Now snarling, the black orc made a waist-level strike, which Ranma hopped over as easily and as calmly as though he were leaping a puddle. "Three strikes... you're out!" The moment he landed he lashed out in a high kick, catching his unwitting opponent off-guard and striking them so hard that they soared upwards and bounced, headfirst, over the cavern roof, collapsing unconscious at the cave entrance.

With barely time to do more than gape, the remaining challengers looked up and one saw a slippered foot smash into his face with enough force to leave a visible imprint, though the armored hulk only staggered instead of falling down as Ranma landed gently on the groaning leader before flicking up a hand to give them a come hither motion. His challengers didn't need any further invitation.

A war hammer came in to take off Ranma's head but met only air as Ranma ducked, reached up behind him and upon snagging his hand on the weapon, artistically flipped onto the weapon and kicked the orc in his metal faceplate before hopping over an arm that lashed out with a large sword while the orc spun crazily before staggering to a stop, breathing hard before he goggled at seeing Ranma standing on his weapon with a smile as the human stepped forwards and kicked him in the face again, this time knocking him out.

As two armored orcs lay on the floor, the other three came together and glanced at one another before moving in cautiously and Ranma was surprised to see a fair amount of coordination in their apparent tactics. Ranma waited to see what would happen, and didn't have to wait long as the three came in, intent on catching Ranma between their weapons. Axes, clubs and swords came together with a symphonic clanging of metal but not human flesh and the three looked up and behind them to find their opponent.

"Sneaky git made a runner fer it." The orc who said that didn't even have time to react as fist came down on top of his helmet, driving all three to the ground thanks to their locked-together weapons as Ranma landed in the center of the steel and wood and lashed out with kicks to the faces of the three until they all sported rather nasty bruises and welts. In the background, the Fikskulls cheered and hollered joyfully; not only were they getting a fine show of an ass kicking, but their new boss was kicking the tar out of these strange gits who had tried to just take over. At that moment, the leader of the group recovered consciousness and with a roar of fury lunged forwards with the intent send Ranma's head flying all the way to the Northern Wastes.

Ranma for his part turned, grabbed the club and yanked it from the orc's surprised hands and, with an unnecessarily dramatic flourish, brought it to soundly land on the dark-skinned brute's head, sending him back to dreamland before the club whirled around to finish the job of knocking out the remaining three orcs.

Pleased with his handiwork, Ranma turned to the others, "So now what? Do we kill them?"

It was a half-hour before the challengers regained their consciousness and wits about them to find themselves securely tied up and their weapons lying a few feet away as Ranma sat cross-legged in front of them, the rainstorm well and truly over though the forest was also truly soaked.

"I was wondering when you'd wake up. I don't know if you guys follow the same rules that these guys do, but I beat you, so I guess that means I'm your boss now." The leader grunted out a laugh at that.

"The zoggin' hell makes yoo think we'd follow a stinking humie?"

Ranma chuckled at the question and insult, "Oh I don't know, maybe because I'm the only one here who wanted you alive, the others were real keen on your stuff." A glance at the Fikskulls shooting glances at the weapons and the armour of the dark-skinned orcs, while nursing lumps and bruises that were the physical proof of Ranma's statement. The leader frowned.

"Hrrmmph, I guess we'ze gonna follow yoo then, yoo'ze our Boss now." One of the others made to protest but was silenced by a meaningful stare that Ranma deciphered easily, 'We're not gonna win this one.'

"Right then, I guess we'll have to untie you and give you back your weapons before we head off." Quick as a flash the bonds were gone and the weapons back in the hands of the stunned orcs as Ranma headed to his perch to pack his few meager belongings while the Fikskulls made the new members welcome, which meant good-natured teasing that started a brawl that Ranma had to break up, along with a few bones.

"Right then, what to do now?" There was a communal glance at each other while Ranma looked out at the sodden forest before the leader of the dark-skinned orcs spoke up.

"Yoo'ze may be our boss, but no proper an' 'ard orc is gonna follow yoo'ze unless yoo can make a Waaagh!" Grunts and comments of agreement chorused behind the orc, "And that means yoo'ze gotta get more orcs instead of putzing around in a dinky little cave!" A chorus of agreements, now louder and rowdier began as Ranma turned to look at the orc.

"What the heck is a Waaagh?"

The orc looked smug, "That's where a Boss proves he's the biggest an' 'ardest orc around by stomping on everythin' and everyone! That's how you get ta be a real Boss!"

The chorus of agreement was deafening and by the looks on their faces, Ranma knew he'd face a mutiny if he didn't agree.

"So all we have to do is recruit more orcs and look for bigger fights?" At the nods and eager looks, Ranma sighed, "What the hell, lets do this then." He held up a hand at the raucous cheers and cries of 'WAAAGH!', and asked a fairly simple question when they all quieted down, "But first things first. Which way do we go?"

The looks of confusion that greeted him told Ranma that this was going to be a long day…

_And that's chapter two up and done. In the next chapter, Ranma's Waaagh finally gets underway… but first he's got to get himself a proper army under his command. Anyone else see trouble on the way…?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Waaagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry._

A/N: I wanted to wait for a beta before I finally posted this, but then I decided that it'd been held back long enough. Keep this in mind before complaining about the quality, please. In other news, Gideon020 and mine's usual beta for all of our other stories has returned, so expect new chapters of Another Rainy Day and A Different Route to resume production.

Chapter 3: Starting the Waaagh! Part 2

It was a quiet afternoon in the forests surrounding the Middle Mountains as a mob of thirty or so Orcs and one human marched through the muddy undergrowth. A day had passed since the massive storm that had hit the region and Ranma agreed to create something called a 'Waaagh', but the exact definition still eluded him, so he was speaking to who he figured would the most knowledgeable on the subject, the five 'Black' Orcs he had recently 'recruited' by strength of arms.

"Okay, so I agreed to lead this 'Waaagh' thing, but what heck is one?"

Hurtur Ironmug was the orc Ranma had chosen to ask, since he seemed to be the leader of the Black Orcs, and his tiny eyes furrowed in concentration, Orcs not being quick or precise thinkers before he nodded in satisfaction to himself before turning to Ranma, whose eyes seemed to be watching for anything as birdsong and other wildlife sounded off in the depths of the forests.

"A Waaagh is where a Boss, and dat means yoo, goes out and gets loadz and loadz of Boys to foller 'im. Then dey pikz a direction and march, smashin, burnin and lootin every zoggin thing in sight. And da more you bash and smash, da more boyz will wantz to foller ya so yooz can do more bashin and smashin. Geddit?"

Ranma blinked; was that it? Just recruit more orcs and then wage war on everything and anything that catches your eye? Then Ranma realized that since a Waaagh was so heartily emphasized, then it would have to be something only the best Bosses could put together, and Ranma had said on more than one occasion that he was the best, now hadn't he? But how to get more orcs to follow him? The others had made it clear that Orcs did not think highly of humans, simply as the most common targets to attack, raid and generally do some damage to, but Ranma hadn't seen another human for the entire time he was leading this group, so who knew what sort of resistance he could face?

Ranma shook his head, thinking about that sort of stuff was only going to get him bogged down, and right now he needed to work out a way to get more Boyz into his Mob. So engrossed with his thinking that Ranma didn't even notice catching a large rock and throwing it back into the forest, eliciting a loud thump and a stream of curses that had some of the Fikskulls shaking their heads in quiet amusement. It was when the general cacophony of raucous boasting, singing and arguing began to slowly die down did Ranma look up.

And his jaw dropped.

Standing in the middle of a forest clearing was a huge wooden pole, crudely carved at the top to show a pair of massive Orc faces daubed in green and red paint. Festooned in garish arrangements around the pole were skeletons, flags, weapons and shields by the hundreds, creating a bizarre and creepy arrangement with the pole at the center. Ranma then noticed five objects clutched in crudely carved hands on the pole and nudged Ironmug with an elbow, "You recognize this thing?"

Ironmug nodded, "Yup, dis 'ere iz where five big Mobs got togedder and smashed up a big humie army. Yoo can see hoo dey are on da big Totem Pole."

He pointed at a bowl of broken Orc teeth, "Dats the sign of dat Broketoof Mob, dey alwayz loozin teef." Then a giant stone hammer, "Dat is da sign of Starhamma's Mob… dunno whut deyr name iz, cuz 'e chased uz off after 'e took over." Third was a torch that had been extinguished by the rain, "Dats dat sign of Da Burnaz. Dey always settin fire ta stuff, an' dere boss has a big stick that can burn whenevva he wantz it to."

Ranma was intrigued at that before he pointed at a strange looking stick that looked like it a pair of barbed prongs on it, "Whose sign is that?"

Ironmug glanced at the stick and nodded, "Dat's the sign of Da Runtherdaz, deyz a small mob dat uses loadz of Gobbos to fight for 'em. Der Boss is named Big Brudda and he'z a weird one' always givvin treats to Gobbos for doing stuff deyz supposed ta be doin. Weird." Ranma shrugged, wondering what a 'Gobbo' was as Ironmug pointed to the last object on the totem pole, a very large and rotting boar's head.

"And dat's da sign of Da Pig Ridaz, deyz the smelliest, noisiest and nastiest gits around. An' da Boyz iz pretty mean too. Deyz led by Boss Hog, an' ya can smell 'im befur ya even see 'im. And dat's da signs of da biggest Mobs around."

That got Ranma's attention, if those five mobs were the largest, then if he could get them together and conquer them somehow, that would be more than enough Orcs to start a Waaagh right?

"So...anyone got ideas on how we can get these guys to follow us then?" That caused the orcs to start scratching their heads and after a few minutes, Ranma was about to suggest his own plan when one bright spark piped up, "Why not challenge 'em? If yooz challenge da Bosses to sum challenges, den dey'll come runnin! No proper Orc is gonna let a humie say he'z better!" There was a chorus of agreements and Ranma sighed. One problem solved, now how to get the attention of these tribes?

Several hours later, the sound of many drums being played, not well but enthusiastically, filled the air. Trying his best to ignore the din –music wasn't one of Ranma's talents, but he wasn't tone-deaf- Ranma turned to Ironmug. "So how long is this gonna take?"

The black orc shrugged. "Dunno. Could take days, could take minutes. Dey'z gotta hear da drums afore dey can come an' see um."

And, of course, the laws of dramatic clichés demanded that the Orcs Ranma was waiting for appear right then- and that was what happened.

From the north came a tribe of thirty orcs, each wielding a cudgel, mace or hammer, at their head a hulking black orc cloaked from head to toe in crudely fashioned fullplate and wielding a hammer of solid iron as tall as Ranma himself. These were unquestionably Starhamma's tribe.

From the northeast came a sound of high-pitched gibbering and yammering, interspersed with the sound of whips cracking and deeper voices roaring and cursing. A tide of diminutive, ugly little creatures poured from the horizon, maybe twenty orcs interspersed in their ranks. At their center, an impressively fat orc lounged on a crude divan supported by maybe twenty unusually large runts, occasionally barking orders at one of the other orcs- or striking at them with a whip. These had to be the Runtherdaz, led by Big Brudda.

From the northwest came the Burnaz, preceded by the stink of ash and alcohol and burnt flesh, charred and blackened and quite evidently drunk out of their minds from the way they weaved and stumbled and tripped over each other. These were the largest number of orcs, some forty-five strong, and led by an especially burnt-looking orc wearing a thick leather mask and brandishing a blazing cudgel.

From the southeast came the Broketoof tribe, remarkably silent and stealthy in their approach. Thirty orcs, each wearing some ornament made from busted fangs strung together, and each carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows. At their lead was an elderly looking orc, face creased equally in scars and wrinkles, but his most distinguishing feature was his right lower canine- which protruded from his mouth and stretched up to be level with the top of his head.

From the southwest came the Pig Ridaz, and Ranma wished they hadn't- the wind was blowing in that direction, and with it came the stench of twenty flatulent, rank, dung-smeared wild boars and their equally flatulent, dung-smeared, rotten-clothed riders. Boss Hog, as unmistakable as Ironmug had described him, reared his gnarly tusker and voiced a noise that could have been a roar of challenge… or could have been a stomach upset.

The five tribes stared at each other across the boundaries of the totem pole, and at the Fikskulls, caught in no-man's-land (or would that be no-orc's-land?) in the middle. Ranma raised his hand to signal the drummers to silence, but they had already done so- being outnumbered like they were tended to make one nervous, even when you were an orc. Ranma tried to think of something to say, but was cut off by a guttural bellow from Boss Hog.

"Whot'z a stinkin' humie doin' 'ere?"

Before Ranma could try and retort to that, Big Brudda spoke up.

"Like yoo'z one ta talk about stinkin'."

"Least it'z da stink ov an 'onest fighta. Yoo don't never fight widdout dem dere runtz a' yerz." Growled Starhamma.

Ranma didn't need to be psychic to see where this was going and promptly whistled loudly, drawing the attention of all greenskins.

"Hey, much fun as it is to see you lot beat the tar outta each other, I didn't call ya here for that."

"An' whut gives ya da right ta call uz anywayz?"

"I'm Ranma- I lead the Fikskull tribe!" Ranma declared defiantly, knowing that any half-heartedness would only hinder him here. Amazingly, rather than the near-riot he was expecting, there was just some relatively low-key grumbling about this fact- most of it mockery in regards the former leader and the ineptness of the Fikskulls in general. This irked Ranma- true, he hadn't asked to be made their leader, but that didn't mean he could just stand around and let them be insulted.

"So, whatcha want anywayz?" lisped the Broketoof leader. After taking a few moments to decipher the orc's accent, Ranma finally spoke.

"I issue a challenge to all tribe leaders! Whoever wins gets leadership over all the tribes- and can start leading them in their own Waaagh!"

This, naturally, started an uproar as orcs "debated" over whether or not such a way of choosing leadership was valid. Before things could get out of control, Ranma shouted out the one thing that could guarantee things would go his way.

"Are you lot scared to face me? Is that it? You're too chicken to test your luck against a human?"

Different world or not, different races or not, Ranma could still piss anyone off. As one the orcs fell silent, their respective leaders glowering at Ranma.

"I'z gonna kick yer ass, humie!" Poured from five throats in unison. Ranma grinned in delight; he still had it. Of course, things couldn't go entirely smoothly as one bright spark chose that moment to speak up. "So, what'z da challenge anywayz?"

"Rock chuckin'!" Roared Starhamma.

"Headbuttin'!" Growled Boss Hog.

"Quick shootin'!" Lisped the Broketoof boss.

"Wrestlin!" Declared Big Brudda.

"Kick da gobbo!" Cheered Da Burna's boss.

"No zogger is kickin' me gobbos!" Shouted Big Brudda.

"Da Big Stick Race den!" The cheated orc snarled back.

Before another argument could break out (and what was with these things? Ranma and Ryoga- hell, Ranma and **Mousse** didn't fall out this quickly!), Ranma took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his lungs. **"Shut up!"** Once they had all stopped and were looking his way, Ranma quickly made his announcement, lest they start up **again**. "I'll take each of you on in the sport you wanted! You, Starhamma; you're first!"

Though Ranma couldn't see the black orc boss's face underneath his helmet, he could tell from his body language that Starhamma was grinning smugly. "Fine den. Ya want to lose right up, dat's fine wit me. Cummon, da rock iz dis way."

Ranma shrugged and followed the hulking greenskin, the other greenskins tagging along for the show- the Fikskulls in hope that their new leader would show off just why they kept him around, the other tribes in anticipation of the fun that would come from seeing this upstart human humiliated. Finally, at the far end of the clearing, Starhamma stopped in front of a boulder. A small one by Ranma's standards, just about the size of that boulder he had seen Akane toss into the canal after she had admitted to herself that she was never going to win Dr. Tofu's heart. Lightweight by his standards, but pretty impressive stuff by just about anyone else's. Starhamma stomped over to the boulder and looked back at Ranma, clearly smirking.

"Da winna iz whoever can chuck dis da furthest."

"Fine. You go first." Ranma said nonchalantly.

Starhamma glowered at him for a second, then dismissed it; if the humie wanted to be beaten so quick, what did he care? Then he could stomp the other bosses, take control of their tribes and get his Waaagh started! He cracked his knuckles, then bent down and grasped the boulder. Grunting with the effort, he heaved it aloft and then hurled it from him as far as he could. A good six feet the boulder flew, grinding along another two feet in the muddy earth before coming to a halt. He looked back over his shoulder at the runty human, expecting to see him quivering as he realized how strong Starhamma was. Instead, he looked outright bored.

"Yor turn, wimp." Starhamma growled, stomping back to wait in front of his boyz. The humie downright sauntered up to the boulder… and hoisted it into the air without so much as a grunt. Starhamma's jaw dropped so hard and fast it clanged as it hit the underside of his helmet. And if that wasn't bad enough, the humie promptly hurled it so far that it vanished into the woods, though the sound of it smashing through branches and crashing into the earth made it clear it had, at least, landed. Brushing his hands dramatically, the human turned to Starhamma and the gobsmacked orcs he had summoned with a cocky grin on his face.

"I believe I win. Your tribe serves me now." To Starhamma's confusion, the human shifted in his stance until he looked like he was ready to wrestle. "Come on, let's get this over with."

"Get whut over wit?" Starhamma asked.

"Don't patronize me. I know how this goes; you scream your head off about how you're gonna kill me for this, then charge me and try to crush me under that big mallet you got there. I've been through this song an' dance routine too often before. Like I said, come at me- may as well get it over with now."

"…Iz yoo nutz?" Starhamma asked, which apparently shocked the human so much he suddenly lost his footing and fell face first into the mud. When he surfaced, Starhamma explained himself. "I don't wanna get my 'ead kicked in juzt yet. I'll get stronga, den I'll thump ya and take da Waaagh fer meself!"

"Well, we're all on the same page at least…" Ranma mumbled to himself. "So, who wants to be next?" He asked aloud, looking over the remaining four chiefs.

Boss Hog grunted and messily half-slid and half-fell from the saddle of his boar, the giant animal grunting in irritation before a meaty fist smacked it on the top of its head. The beast cowed into submission, the orc boss strode forward until he was close to Ranma, the smell nearly bringing tears to Ranma's eyes as he used all his training to suppress the urge to vomit from the stench.

"Right, now we'z gunna do sum 'eadbuttin. Winner is hooever knocks the uvver one down." He cracked his neck from side to side with loud pops while Ranma simply nodded and carefully positioned his feet as Boss Hog took a single step back and planted his feet squarely on the ground. Silence filled the clearing as the two stared at each other before at an unseen signal, their heads dipped backward.

There was a loud **CRACK** of bone meeting bone and the assembled orcs winced but those who weren't part of the Fikskulls quickly gaped at the sight before them. Boss Hog and Ranma's foreheads were pressed firmly against the others, the strain obvious as they tried to push each other over with their heads alone.

"Zoggin hoomie, fall over already!" Ranma finally couldn't hold in the retort at the tip of his tongue as the Orc's foul breath washed over him like some sort of yellow fog.

"You know, there's a little thing called mouth-wash… look into it! Please!"

Boss Hog growled lowly before the pair backed off, Ranma noticing that they had drawn blood at the same time.

"Dat wuz a tie. Round two!" The orcs cheered as the two challengers squared off again and then hushed. There was a moment's pause and then their heads came together again with another vicious cracking and there was a chorus of cheers and jeers as Boss Hog and Ranma staggered back a step before recovering and staring at each other; Boss Hog with annoyed disbelief while Ranma had his usual smirk on his face.

They stepped forwards again and this time the silence was absolute.

**CRACK**

Boss Hog and Ranma were still after that third and final meeting of minds and skulls as the various orcs watched with baited breath. Then with a groan, Boss Hog slumped forwards and collapsed to the ground to the sound of cheering Fikskulls and disbelieving Pig Ridaz.

Having seen two chieftains dispatched so simply, the remaining triad of Bigtoof, Big Brudda and Burna were less confident than they had been. Still, it wasn't orcy nature to give up- not to mention that their tribes would tear them limb from limb for backing down now. After a brief fistfight, it was decided that Broketoof would be Ranma's next challenger, and crude targets were quickly set up for Ranma's next challenge.

"Whoever shoots three arrers inta da target furst, wins. Ya got dat?" The over-tusked orc lisped, one guy already fixed into an aiming squint... though that might have been because Burna had punched him there and blacked his eye.

"You just get ready to start taking orders from me." Ranma responded curtly. He wasn't formally trained in archery, but when had that ever mattered before? He almost felt sorry for this orc; with the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken's speed training, he could almost literally outshoot lightning. Borrowing a bow from one of his own tribe's hunters, as he didn't trust the Broketoofs to loan him a bow without sabotaging it (and when had he started thinking of the Fikskulls as his tribe, he caught himself wondering), he notched the first arrow, tipped with something that looked a lot like an orc tusk, and aimed at the target, the other two arrows impaled at his feet in the earth. Bigtoof stood nearby, in an identical position, save the fact his fat tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth as a sign of concentration. Standing well out of the way, one of the Fikskulls raised a hand, then brought it down sharply.

"Shoot!"

And as soon as it began, it was over- Bigtoof had barely reached for his second arrow by the time Ranma's three arrows had whizzed through the air and slammed into the target, burying themselves up to half their length through it. The old orc looked at Ranma, looked at his own bow, looked at the targets and then looked at Ranma again, prompting the pigtailed boy to ready himself for an attack. Instead, Bigtoof suddenly broke into a wide grin.

"If only me boyz could shoot like dat! Well, dey're yer boyz now- but I want yer ta teach me dat trick!"

"...Sure." Ranma replied; and here he thought he had a handle on how these orcs worked...

Three bosses down and the remaining two were definitely getting nervous as Big Brudda and Burna decided to have a quick meeting, their mutual anxiety at the apparent strength and skill of this human enough to have them speaking civilly to one another. As civilly as orcs could speak anyway.

"Psst. Hey! I fink dis humie is just playin' wiv us!"

Big Brudda frowned at Burna's words but couldn't deny that so far the human was obviously holding back on his own power and still winning. And a humie winning against orcs without going all the way with his strength was just not on.

"I finks yooz is right, but wut are we gunna do?"

Burna's masked face stared at Big Brudda like he was an idiot. "We beat him up, ya gobbo-lovin mush 'ead! No humie is a match for an orc whooz good 'n' 'ard!"

Big Brudda nodded in agreement, and readied his whip as he prepared to leave his moving throne, while the Burnaz boss set his cudgel alight and readied himself for a charge, not knowing that their 'quiet' conversation had been picked up by the very person they intended to take down.

'And here they come.' Ranma thought to himself; he knew something like this was going to happen, all he had to figure out was when. This would be a good lesson to all of the orcs; you don't try and stab Ranma Saotome in the back! Deliberately he feigned inattention, until he heard the two orcs come charging at him from behind. None of the other orcs made any sound, but he hadn't expected them to- this sort of thing was obviously part of their culture. Waiting until just the last moment, he sprang into the air as Burna lashed out at Ranma's spine with his blazing club, only to look up and stare stupidly as Ranma casually backflipped over him. Landing easily on his feet, Ranma lashed out in a good, solid blow to the back of Burna's head, pitching him forward to crash dazed upon the ground.

As he was pulling back from his strike, though, Big Brudda's whip lashed through the air and coiled around Ranma's arm, snapping taut as the hefty orc pulled back on it with all his weight. He actually managed to unbalance Ranma, though the pigtailed boy quickly caught his footing before falling facefirst into the dirt and grounded himself, causing Big Brudda to boggle as he found himself unable to pull Ranma any further. He was still wearing that expression when Ranma suddenly surged forward in a flying kick that smashed clean into the orc's jaw, sending several tusks flying as he keeled over unconscious.

Yanking the whip's handle from Brudda's unclenched hand whilst uncoiling its lash from around his own arm, he spun around and lashed out at the charging Burna, who had regained consciousness, tying both of the orc's legs together and then pulling them out from under him. A brief skirmish later, and Ranma was standing with one foot on Burna's chest, having hogtied the indignant orc.

"Give up yet?" Ranma asked casually.

Burna stared at Ranma with an indignant expression as Ranma flipped up the orc's cudgel and then tossed it casually behind him, sending it spinning end over end until it smacked square between the eyes of Big Brudda, who had just been staggering to his feet and promptly dropped like a sack of potatoes.

"Yoo think I'm gunna let a humie lead a Waagh! Yooz just a humie, yoo don't know nuthin about a Waaagh!"

Ranma simply raised a hand and snapped his fingers, prompting a single Fikskull to step forwards and give the pigtailed human an axe which he hefted experimentally.

"I may not know about a Waaagh. But I know something far more important..." Burna looked confused as Ranma's eyes took on a nasty glint as he raised the axe, "And that's how to fight!"

The blade came down...

And slammed into the soft mud scant centimeters from Burna's head. Ranma spat away from the fallen orc as Burna stared at the blade, while Ranma turned to the silent orcs and took a deep breath before letting loose a loud shout, **"Anyone else want to try?"**

There was silence, not an orc moved at Ranma's narrowed eyes as the pigtailed teen continued in a quieter voice.

"You follow me now, you fight when I say you fight and go where I say we're going. If I tell you to leave someone alone, then you will leave them alone. If I say that we need to be quiet, then you will all shut your fucking mouths! And do you know why you're going to do all that?" He glared at the assembled orcs, easily counting at least a hundred or more apart from the hundreds of 'gobbos' that were also staring in silence, "Because I am the Boss! And anyone who tries to stab me in the back..."

Ranma's arm whipped up and with an almost casual heave, the axe was sent spinning like a saw blade to slam in front of the recovering Big Brudda's face, the sharp spike at the end of the weapon nearly touching his nose as Ranma roared, **"...Will die!"**

Truthfully he was still a little squeamish about killing but knew that if he was going to do this, if he was going to do the role that fickle fate had apparently chosen to be his destiny, then he would have to crush that squeamishness in public and carry out any threats he made so to avoid looking weak in front of these violent, loud and simple-minded animals who would take any chance to kill him.

"But if you follow me, and if you do what I say, then we will not lose! We will be remembered as the Waaagh that could not be stopped! Not by men, by beast, and certainly not by other orcs. But that is only if you will march in my WAAAAGH!"

As one the Fikskulls took up the battle-cry, then the Broketoof raised their bows and roared out the cry, followed by Starhamma's Mob, the Pig Ridaz, and then with a little encouragement from the whips, the goblins of Big Brudda's Mob. Ranma stared down at Burna, who was staring in shock at the roaring orcs, "Well? Your choice."

Burna stared at his boyz, and then at the huge numbers of orcs already taking up the rallying cry, and then he stared at the cold blue eyes of Ranma. Then he started to chuckled, before guffawing, and then going into loud, racous laughter before with a roar of his own, Burna added his voice and the Burnaz followed with him.

"WAAAAAGH!"

Staring at the assembled orcs, Ranma realized something important. He had crossed the line of no return; he had committed to likely abandoning all of his father's lectures not to kill and was going to certainly live a life of constant roaming and bloody fighting.

And yet he felt like he had been liberated as the orcs roared out the same battle-cry over and over again at the top of their lungs. Smiling slightly, Ranma raised his arms and joined them.

"WAAAAAAAGH!"

_And that's this chapter done. Ranma has his Waaagh!, so now it's time to go forth and make war. Hmm… out of curiosity, do people think there's room in this story for a 'personality' like, say, a crazy/brain-damaged Orc who considers Ranma an emissary of the gods and is thus prone to acting like a warped prophet? The sort of Orc who could, in all seriousness, make a speech along the lines of "An' Ranma said: go forf an' kick ass, me boyz. And da boyz went forf, an' much ass woz kicked"? Or would such a character either strain credulity too much or be too offensive? Anyway, from this chapter forth, feel free to suggest 'personalities' for Ranma to encounter, be it as friends, foes or general nutters.  
Gideon020 and I are now in search of a new beta for this story. If you are interested, then please speak up!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Waaagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't own either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry._

A/N: we apologize for the time between updates, but we were originally planning to focus on Another Rainy Day in Nerima; our decision to write this chapter was completely spontaneous on our part. Many thanks to Jckidsmart, our new beta!

Chapter 4: The Battle of Mossfeld

Captain Johann Erlikson stared at the ruins of what once been the village of Mossfeld. His patrol company had been scheduled to stop here for a rest but any thoughts of rest had vanished when they found the ruins. Many of the State Troopers in his company were skilled hunters and they knew the signs of many of the Empire's enemies.

"Captain! Captain!" Johann turned to see one of his sergeants, Karl Werden, jog up to him, the young man nearly tripping over a stone and stepping into a puddle of gore as he stopped in front of the captain, "Captain, we've found something you should take a look at!"

Following the sergeant, Johann grimaced at the sight of burnt corpses and pieces of human scattered everywhere before he stopped in front of several men who were some of the best trackers and hunters in the company, "What do you have for me men?"

Kaspar Heydrich looked up to regard the captain with a grim face before waving his hand to show Johann a familiar green corpse that had Johann snarling, "Orcs."

Kaspar nodded, "We've scoured the surrounding forest and found boar spoor and boot prints for over a hundred greenskins. But we've also found evidence of a human in the group, a young male. Likely a prisoner from the village who was forced to lead these vermin to the village."

Johann's snarl turned vicious, "Accursed greenskins." Kaspar nodded even as he spat on the corpse.

So the Imperial troops continued to search, unknowing of the truth of the situation that had occurred several days ago.

"So, none of you found a way?" Ranma asked the triad of Fikskull scouts that had just reported back to him.

They shook their heads as one. "Naw, boss, th' zoggin' trees iz too fik ta get froo. If we'z getting past dat village, we'z gonna haf ta go froo it."

"Which iz how a propa Orc should 'andle fingz..." Growled Starhamma, clenching his fist so that the leather stretched audibly.

No one would really have blamed Ranma for, at the very least, trying to cuss the Black Orc Boss out and, at most, for delivering a good solid fist in the gob. And Ranma couldn't help but wonder if that was what Starhamma was actually aiming for. But, either way, the Black Orc had been needling Ranma as to his skills as a leader ever since he'd been co-opted, and Ranma wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of blowing his stack. Just yet anyway. Instead, he turned to face the hulking brute, face betraying none of the aggravation he was feeling.

"Oh, issat so?" He said sweetly. "Well then, tell you what; why don't you lead the charge? Maybe we'll even scrape what's left of you off the rocks before we go!" He snapped, his tone having distinctly soured in that last sentence.

"Sounds good ta me." Gragtar grunted, in a display of support for Ranma that was rather surprising... until one took into account the fact he didn't like the uppity Black Orc either. If anyone was going to kick this humie outta the Waaagh, it was going to be him!

As Starhamma sulked, Ranma turned away from him, deeply troubled. They had been approaching a village when circumstances had intervened to call a halt to things- namely the fact the village had some kind of mortar or something that lobbed high explosive projectiles at the advancing orcs. At least thirty goblins had been splattered before they'd gotten out of range, and Ranma was pretty sure that about twelve orcs had also been killed too. They didn't have the numbers that they could safely absorb that kind of firepower -not to mention Ranma wasn't the sort of commander who treated his men as disposable tools anyway- and so he'd called a halt to things while he sent some scouts from his own tribe (his **own** tribe? When had the Fikskulls become that?) to see if they could find an alternate route. With that a waste of time, the only way they were getting past the village was if they destroyed it first. But the question was how to do that without getting blown to smithereens first...? Finally, Ranma nodded his head.

"Alright then, that's the only thing for it. Listen up ya screwheads!" Ranma shouted to the orcs, who looked up from where they were lounging around at the sound of his voice. "I'm gonna sneak into that village, and then I'm gonna blow up that... whatever it was. You lot are to stay here, got it?"

There were various grumbles and mutters in response. Ranma was expecting this; really, when you got down to it, leading greenskins was kind of like leading a mob of violent drunks... or two-year-olds, whichever.

"I can't hear you!" He screamed, repressing the urge to clutch his throat as the sudden strain ripped at his vocal cords; he'd never yelled this much in Nerima.

"Will do, boss." Came the sullen chorus. Ranma turned and began to walk purposely in the proper direction; all he could do now was get this over with as quickly as possible and trust that his... what would be the right word? Lieutenants? Anyway, all he could hope was that the others would at least keep the mobs here in this general area until he managed to get the artillery disabled.

Before he could leave, however, Gragtar suddenly spoke up. "An' jist how iz yoo gonna take care o' dat fing anywayz?"

Ranma turned to face Gragtar. "Do you know why I'm the boss?" He said smoothly, knowing that this was really rubbing a sore spot, but not really caring. "Because I'm stronger than you, I'm tougher than you, I'm faster than you, I'm smarter than you and, above all else, I'm sneakier than you!" He snapped.

Then, in a move he would later claim was to emphasize his points, but in reality was more an unresisted urge to show off, Ranma flexed his legs and sprang upwards and backwards, easily soaring to a height of about a story and hurtling back towards a tree, catching onto it without even looking back before spinning around and springing off, leaping from tree to tree with all of the speed and agility that came as the heir to the Saotome School of Anything-Goes.

Ranma was already halfway to the target before he began to feel doubts. Not in his ability to reach the target; it was much easier to shoot at a noisy mob of warriors on the ground than one rapid-moving and near-silent figure darting from treetop to treetop, but in his ability to stop the artillery piece. He didn't know the first thing about machinery like that! ...But did it really matter? A part of his mind commented. All he had to do was wreck it so badly that it couldn't fire anymore, and when you could warp steel with your bare hands, it wasn't that hard to do. But, commented a different part of his mind, having his own piece of working artillery could prove quite useful, if he was going to lead an army. Shaking his head angrily to clear it of all these distracting thoughts, Ranma concentrated on what was important. Getting to the cannon would be the first problem; the truth be told, he neither blamed the people for attacking him and his forces, nor did he want to kill innocent people. If possible, he would just lead his forces by without attacking, but he knew the orcs would be out for blood now. The best he could do would be to try and convince the people to flee their homes while he went past, then return after the orcs had gone. But precisely how was he going to do that?

Before he could give any real thought to it, he was at his destination. Descending noiselessly from his aerial perch, thankful for the first time in a while that his old man had insisted on training Ranma to be as stealthy as possible, Ranma raced across the few feet of barren earth, likely cleared for a firing range, that remained before he reached the palisade. The wooden wall, with its spiked tips, would have been quite impressive to someone who couldn't leap stories at a time and cling to the side of a sheer wall of concrete- which meant Ranma easily cleared the top in record time, darting into the village proper far faster than any watchman could have intercepted him.

Landing easily, pausing for a few seconds to catch his breath -martial artist that he was, even he couldn't go at such a pace without it exacting some toll on him- Ranma started to head deeper down the alley- ugh, what was that horrible smell? As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he suddenly saw the source of the stench- a human body, hanging from the wall by great iron spikes that had been driven into its wrists. Ancient blood drenched the wall around and below it, evidence that the person had been alive when they were nailed up there, but had they still been alive when their lower torso had been raggedly torn away, leaving their entrails to dangle and sway in the wind? Ranma stared mindlessly at the loops of pustulent flesh, writhing colonies of maggots hungrily squirming across and within them, before the reality of what he was seeing hit him like a hammer blow and he stumbled away with a strangled cry to vomit.

As he emptied his stomach, Ranma took a deep breath just as he heard it. A great roaring scream as a shockwave pulsed through the ground and he leaped to the rooftops, sneaking across with all of his considerable skill as he heard guttural chanting, the ringing clang of metal against metal and the screams of people before he came across it and it was only with the aid of the Soul of Ice that he could suppress the urge to cry out in horror.

In the center of the town, a great host of tattooed men chanted and swayed around a great fire, apparently reciting some guttural, dirge-like prayer while a ways off, thirty men in armor stood silently in front of a giant man in armor holding a wicked looking sword that fitted with the great spines and spikes that glinted in the light of the massive fire, a fire being fed live kindling in the form of several men who screamed as they tried to escape their chains before the flames consumed them.

But where was the source of that unearthly scream from before? Ignoring the corpses strung up at every opportunity, corpses that ranged from elderly men to children, Ranma's eyes searched the town, while he tried to suppress the urge to retch at the sheer _wrongness_ that radiated off the symbols daubed in blood and forged from beaten iron before he saw it and he nearly threw up then and there.

It was a huge cannon, as large as some of the small cottages in the village, and made from brass and human skulls and flesh. Great chains were nailed into the ground as spiked wheels gripped the ground and Ranma could clearly see the chains straining to hold the cannon in the ground but couldn't see why they were doing so when the cannon's maw widened and it gave a howling shriek that made the air vibrate and forced Ranma to clap his hands over his ears at the volume of it.

Eyes watering, Ranma watched as short men in brass helmets with ringlet beards began whipping the great cannon, prompting howls and screams of pain before it relaxed and seemingly calmed down. Then, before Ranma's eyes and as if to show that he hadn't yet seen all the horrors on offer, they grabbed several women who had been tied up and dragged them kicking and screaming to a grate at the rear of the demon-cannon, before flinging it open to show ungodly fires that prompted even greater struggles as the short men lifted the women bodily and before Ranma's horrified eyes, threw them into the flames and shut the grate.

Ranma couldn't see what was happening to the women, but the sight of melting flesh and charred bone dripping underneath the cannon was enough to help him realize what the cannon fired as it screamed and coughed forth a ball of fire that sped into the distance, a ball of fire that Ranma knew instinctively from the scream it made that it was the soul of one of the women tossed into the furnace.

The Soul of Ice helped Ranma suppress the urge to empty his stomach of what bile remained, but it didn't cool the simmering rage building inside him as he snarled and stood up. To hell with going around it; these scum were marked for death!

The Chaos Dwarves manning their Hellcannon didn't even hear or see the shadow that alighted from the rooftops before making an impossible leap into the air. The unearthly senses of their semi-sentient charge however, did and while its scream of fury was ignored, the loud wet *SKRUNCH!* as its body was caved in by the mother of all hammer kicks did alert the tainted dwarves and they whirled around only to see a shadow alight onto the rooftops as the cannon aligned itself and before the dwarves could stop it, the Hellcannon fired in rage.

The dwarves didn't have time to pray to Hashut when the gun exploded from the blockage caused by its caved in body, consuming them in a hellish explosion that completely obliterated cannon, dwarves, and the ground on which it was standing, leaving behind a crater that would be dismissed as the powder stores for the inhabitants of Mossfeld.

The resultant shockwave as cannon and Chaos Dwarves were consumed by hellfire sent the various warriors to the ground as the Exalted Champion and his Warrior bodyguard looked around, but saw nothing in the rapidly approaching night. Meanwhile, blue eyes set in a cold glare glanced back only once before their owner continued on his way back to his forces, vowing to burn the village to the ground for what those...monsters, for he would never see them as people, did to the inhabitants.

Starhamma and the black orc "members" of the Fikskull tribe were currently engaged in bashing the will to fight out of some rowdy orcs when Ranma came storming into the glade... well, if skidding to a halt after springing in a semi-horizontal leap from a close by tree could be called storming. The orcs watched as he stood there, frantically sucking air back into his lungs in a mixture of exhaustion and fury, until Starhamma broke the silence after dropping his latest dazed troublemaker back onto the ground.

"So whut gotz yer loincloth inna knot?" He asked mockingly.

Ranma promptly stalked over to him wordlessly and punched him square in the mouth. While the black orc spat tusks onto the ground, Ranma ignored him to address his semi-reluctant followers.

"Now listen up! Are you orcs?"

"We'z orcs!" They shouted back.

"I can't hear you! Are! You! Orcs!?"

"WE'Z DA ORCS!" They screamed back.

"And that means you wanna fight, right?" Ranma cried.

"We wantz ta fight! Show uz ta da fight!" They roared back.

"Well then, follow me and we're going to a fight! I want ya to bust heads, break stuff, and kick ass! Do ya think you can do that?"

"WAAAGH! We'z gonna fight! Green is good and green is go! Green is good and green is go! Waaagh! Fight! Fight! Fight! Show uz ta da fight!" They chanted and cheered, scrambling to gather their stuff as Ranma ran off back towards the village, the orcs thundering in a howling, laughing, jeering, cheering tide hot on his heels.

Of course, the current occupants of the village weren't caught off-guard by Ranma's assault; the explosion of the Hellcannon had made it quite obvious to the Chaos warband that they were soon to be attacked, but the sheer enthusiasm of the greenskin charge meant that they had the advantage. Without the advantage of their artillery piece, their capacity for ranged combat was limited to mere throwing axes and javelins, a far lesser threat. But a threat all the same, several orcs went down, something that only threw Ranma even further into a rage, so much so that the Broketoofs barely had time for more than one volley of arrows (which, it had to be said, succeeded more in interrupting the fire of the defenders than actually killing any) before Ranma had raced ahead and soared up onto the inner wall, where the Chaos marauders were waiting for him. Instinctively Ranma drew the purloined, almost never used sword from his waist and launched himself into the fray, strength, speed and sheer rage acting in substitution for finesse and familiarity with the ways of the sword. The precise details of what he was doing faded into nothingness; there was only the Now, the sensation of adrenaline coursing through his veins, ducking, parrying, dodging, striking, all on the basis of nothing but instinct, for there was no room for rational thought here, where blood sprayed in the air and screams of pain and rage echoed in equal fervor.

By the time Ranma finally managed to snap out of his initial bloodlust, he found himself standing in the center of town- drenched in gore, with a number of minor wounds, and completely unaware of how any of this had transpired. There was no time to stop and reflect, however, as a triad of hulking, armor-clad brutes wielding greatweapons were currently charging towards him! Ranma ducked beneath a swinging axe, reflexively bringing his sword up and striking at the brute's arm, cleaving deep into the flesh and the bone without completely severing it. As his foe howled and tried to back away, Ranma pressed the attack, thrusting the sword hilt-deep into its chest, a blow that should have been instantly fatal. Instead, it dropped the axe and drew a shorter sword from its belt with its useful arm, hacking back at Ranma until he twisted the blade inside the wound and jarred it up and down, causing his opponent to finally die with sickly, gray-white blood pouring from its wounds. He barely managed to yank the sword from its corpse before enemy number two came in swinging with a greatsword, forcing Ranma to spring aside and tumble to his feet. The third enemy, wielding a spear, almost managed to get Ranma as he chose that moment to attack, only to be dodged at the last moment. Before he could withdraw to try again, a crude greathammer descended upon his head with meteoric force, crushing the skull to pulp and driving the broken corpse to the ground.

Ranma barely had time to notice this, as he was currently busy dodging the broad sweeping strikes of the remaining Chaos Warrior, but finally he struck through his foe's defences and drove the sword into its eyeslit with such force that the blade snapped off near the hilt. He snatched up the longsword that his first opponent had dropped, a wary eye on Starhamma. When the black orc turned in search of new targets, Ranma did the same, picking a random direction and running off to see what possible targets lay in that direction. He had no idea how his troops were handling things, but all he could really do was trust that they were.

After the initial rage had burned out, all that was left was an emptiness that Ranma didn't even try to fill with any sort of emotion as he strided along one of the main streets in the village, heading towards the center as fires began to spring up as the Burnaz began torching houses to flush out any enemies. His longsword flashed once and a man's head slid off his shoulders as a hand grabbed the large axe and sent it spinning into an ammoured warrior's head with enough force to split it in two.

If Ranma was looking at himself as he stalked down the street, he would have been shocked to see a cold, dead expression on his face as blue eyes that now held a stormy darkness in them flicked here and there for another target and ignoring the orcs around him as they collapsed houses and other buildings in their mad rush for something to wet their blades with blood.

A screaming man with longsword raised, charged Ranma but the teen grabbed the man's wrist and twisted the armuntil gave a sickening crack even as his own sword stabbed into the man's sternum. With his own considerable might, Ranma dragged the sword upwards, not even hearing the screams of the wretched creature in his arms as he opened up its chest and back to expose its innards to the world, before he snatched the second blade and kicked the man to the ground to bleed out to death before striding onwards.

When he reached the last few meters before the main square, a mob of men rushed from one of the buildings, screaming names that Ranma didn't even acknowledge to hear what they were before he dashed forwards.

The first warrior was hit with a fearsome kick that sent him into the air, Ranma jumped up after him with swords flashing, opening great rending cuts and hacking off limbs before grabbing the man and bringing him down headfirst with enough force to pop the warrior's skull like a rotten melon. Flipping forwards, Ranma landed on another warrior and span, his feet catching the man's neck and twisting his head off as the swords sliced two more head into neat sections before Ranma kicked the head to another warrior.

Skull met skull before a foot met the skull and caved it in. As the warrior collapsed bonelessly, Ranma turned slowly to regard his remaining opponents before he spoke in Japanese, the men before him backing away slightly, "No, you will not leave here alive." He charged and the night air was filled with screams as Orcs tackled men and hacked them into quivering chunks of meat and goblins swarmed over others in scratching, stabbing, biting, squabbling hordes and left behind mutilated, unrecognizable corpses.

Finally, as he slashed a man's head off and strode into the square, Ranma stood before the hulking form of what was undoubtedly the leader of these monsters in human form.

He was nine feet tall to the inch, and dressed from head to toe in spiked armor of black, wrought with intricate engravings of inhuman faces and ghastly symbols. In one hand he carried the spiked bastard sword he had been wielding when Ranma had first caught sight of him, and in the other a massive tower shield covered in what looked like stretched sinew studded with a dozen inhuman eyes. With one casual, almost lazy stroke he decapitated an orc that had assaulted him, magenta blood spurting into the air like a miniature geyser and sending a fresh torrent of rage burning into Ranma at the sight of one of his followers being killed. He bellowed a challenge to the hulking freak, who turned a hungry look towards him in reply.

"Yes...your soul is strong. The Dark Gods will reward me when I send you screaming into their presence!"

With speed that startled Ranma, the hulking figure suddenly went from its former position to right in Ranma's face, bastard sword descending towards Ranma's head at a speed that would have split the skull of any other human. Ranma, however, was no ordinary human, and caught the blade on his twin longswords, sparks and the screeching of tortured metal flying before Ranma savagely thrust back, uncrossing the blades and slashing at his foe's gut while his bastard sword was off-tangent. One glanced harmlessly from the interposed shield, the other stung through to pierce the Champion's hip, blood seeping forth before he snarled and struck at Ranma once, twice, thrice, each blow forcing Ranma back and away. Around and around they circled one another, darting in to slash and stab before withdrawing as quickly as they had attacked. Neither looked away from the other, neither allowed anything to distract them, even as orcs and Chaos worshippers fought and died around them and flames hungrily devoured all things indiscriminately. Thrust, slash, parry, dodge, circle, these were the entirety of their world. There was nothing and no one else; reality had narrowed down to a circular patch of bloody earth several feet wide. All there was in existence was the need to fight, to determine who was worthy of life. This would not, could not, last forever- sooner or later one would make a mistake from which there would be no recovery.

A glance, a motion, they struck!

For a heartbeat that lasted a terrible eternity, time stood still, and then slowly, the Chaos Champion toppled lifelessly to the ground, his head sliding free from his shoulders to roll across the ground.

Ranma inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly; that had been a trial. Though the deathblow he dealt had been swift, actually striking it had been as difficult as any of his battles against Ryoga or Mousse. He was bleeding from myriad minor wounds taken in that fight and from others; including gashes on his knuckles that he knew could have amputated his fingers if the blow had struck deeper. Looking around, he saw no enemies left alive- merely looting orcs and burning buildings. Inhaling again, he whistled as loudly as he could, the shrill noise echoing throughout the town.

"Let's get outta here! Before we end up as barbeque!" He bellowed, already heading for the doorway out of town, his followers trailing after him; they seemed to have killed everyone, and getting burnt to a crisp wasn't high on any orc's priority list. The force regrouped outside the village and watched it burn in relative silence...which meant that they split the air with joyous whooping, cheering and jeers towards their slain enemies. If they'd managed to capture the village without destroying it, they probably would have partied for a few days to celebrate; the Burnaz were not going to be popular with the other mobs for some time after that battle. As it was, they merely enjoyed the spectacle of the burning village, finally moving on when the last building crumbled in on itself and all that remained were burning heaps of rubble. The fact that a storm had begun to brew had no motivational effects on Ranma, of course.

"And that, Captain is how I believe the battle occurred in the night before the storm washed away their tracks. This is a cunning warboss, likely one who has watched our tactics and likely the tactics of Chaos Raiders to pull this off. Of the villagers defending Mossfeld, it is obvious that every single man, woman and child was ruthlessly slaughtered by these vile greenskins."

"With the village in flames from their attack, any corpses left would be reduced to ash and the rains did a fairly good job of washing away most, but not all, of the tracks. It would be impossible to tell that orcs were involved were it not for the differences in their body structure, and the shape of the bones and skulls be found under some of the ashes. After all, orcs are very distinctive."

The men spat on the rotting corpse of the headless orc they had found before Captain Johann turned to the man in charge of the messenger falcons and maps, "Where are the nearest garrisons Walden?" The man checked his maps for a few minutes along with a few other sheets of parchment before he nodded.

"The nearest garrison is Sablewood Fort, and I'll get a falcon ready to send to Hergig so the General knows our mission. He should be able to get us reinforcements." Johann nodded and the man began writing a message to tie to the leg of one of the specially trained Imperial Messenger Falcons to send to the city of Hergig, capital of the province of Hochland.

Johann stared at the washed out bootprints heading south and narrowed his eyes before turning to the rest of his men, "Prepare to move out men! While reinforcements may not be coming for a while, it is up to us to track these despicable greenskins and stop them from forming a waaagh. Are you with me?" The soldiers of Hochland in their red and green uniforms cheered as they set off in pursuit.

As they left the village, a wind blew through the village and swept some ash off one human corpse, revealing to all the world an eight-pointed star that would have changed the minds of the men racing off in pursuit of a fledgling orc WAAGH, but there was no one to observe this new fact except for the ravens picking at the dead.

_And that's the end of this chapter. I apologize for the delay, but I'm afraid that updates for December may be sporadic I need to attend a funeral (my paternal grandfather) on the 5__th__, and I'll be on vacation (which means no internet access) at the family property for roughly the 22__nd__ through to… January 5__th__, off the top of my head. I thank you all for your patience._


	5. Chapter 5

**Waaagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry._

A/N: after a long delay, here's the newest chapter of this story. A brief diversion from the usual mayhem, but don't want to get into a rut, now do we? As for what comes afterwards… updates will be sporadic, I admit, but we do have a coherent plan and rest assured that Ranma won't be either depending on luck or getting everything handed to him on a silver platter.

Chapter 5: Bitz, Gubbinz, and Planning the Way

Ranma sighed heavily; it wasn't as though he was unused to it, he had spent his entire life on the road after all, but he was really getting sick of wandering through the woods without anything even approaching a clue as to where the hell he was or where the hell he was going. The great boisterous mob of greenskinned battle-crazed lunatics behind him, while admittedly giving him a measure of safety, was also somewhat annoying- more so with the way his nerves had been strained since that 'incident' at the village a few days ago. A telling fact was the fact he practically leapt out of his skin at a sudden, incoherent shriek when, back in Nerima, he would have just accepted it as part of the daily routine.

"What was that?" He snapped, hands instinctively rising to chest level and curling into loose fists. The Orcs and Goblins near him had pulled to a halt, readying themselves into fighting stances- though the fact that the rear ranks hadn't stopped in time meant that it looked like they were about ready to start fighting each other. Again. Torn between wariness, the impulse to stop them, and the urge to just let them beat on each other for a while, Ranma was actually grateful when another cry, soon becoming a mini-chorus, rang out. Tracking the sounds, he spotted maybe a dozen vaguely bat-like things gliding awkwardly and clumsily through the sky above.

"Hey, what are those things?" He demanded.

The nearest Orcs looked up from where they were arguing, whereupon an expression of unpleasant realization etched itself across their ugly faces.

"Doom Divers! Run!" They shouted, and Ranma blinked in disbelief as his mob, over a hundred hulking, bloodthirsty maniacs, scattered like frightened children.

"What the hell is their problem?" He asked aloud. Any further introspection on the subject was cut off when, with a piercing cry, one of them dived at him like a bullet. He leapt back; ready to fight against the monster when it came within reach. Instead, it crashed headlong into the ground with a grisly snapping sound, magenta gore fountaining into the air as it smashed itself to a pulp, then raining down on the startled human. Ranma barely had time to even think of wiping the filth from his face before similar cries split the air and the other flying things came crashing down towards him- at least of few of which did so only because their wings suddenly ripped apart or fell into pieces.

Once the last of them was a nasty smear on the road, Ranma wiped his face clean, spat at the taste of soured fruit that burned his tongue, and turned slowly to the sheepish looking greenskins now creeping back onto the road.

"Anyone care to tell me what the hell that was all about?" He asked, his tone casual, but a disturbing light in his eyes and something strangely menacing about the way his hand was toying with the hilt of his sword.

"Doom Divers iz gobbos what strapped wings on their backs and shot 'emselves outta giant slingshot." One Orc promptly ventured.

"What, you mean, like living catapult ammo? Are they nuts?" Ranma replied in disbelief.

"Dat's about it." Another Orc returned.

"Alright, alright, I guess I understand. But answer me one thing." Ranma said, rubbing at his brow.

"Whut's dat?"

"Why did they send you lot running with yer tails between yer legs? Since when are you lot chicken?"

"Who'z a chikken? Getting killt by havin' gobbos drop on yer 'ead just ain't right when yoo'z an Orc!" A third greenskin snapped.

Ranma opened his mouth, and then closed it, repeating the process several times before he shook his head, "No, I'm not even going to try. Wonder where the hell they came from?"

At that moment, as if in answer to his question, Ranma looked in the right direction to see a small shape rocket out of the trees before it spread a set of wings and began clumsily gliding again. Ranma simply settled for a nod, "Right, lets go and put a stop to this." The orcs chuckled as they hefted their weapons and followed Ranma into the forest gloom, though many continued to slip a quick glance up at the skies, just in case.

Ranma snarled out a curse as he noticed the tell-tale signs of a little-used dirt track, now completely overgrown but still in use from the way the grass was compressed as the orcs tromped after him. The Doom Divers had stopped after several minutes, likely because the tree canopy was thick enough to actually hide the impressively large force, and for once they were quiet, though that was likely to avoid catching the attention of gliding goblin maniacs.

"Should be about...here!" Ranma's sword flashed out of its sheath to cut aside a bush to reveal a paved path, grass growing around the edges as Ranma nodded, "That should do it." He glanced back at the orcs, "Stay close and for the love of all that is good and holy, keep your mouths shut! Who knows what's going to land on us next?" The orcs nodded while nervously looking up at the canopy before following Ranma as quietly as possible, though the teen still flinched when a piece of plate armor jostled or a pair of weapons slid against each other.

The path led the motley army to an overhang and their they could see into a ruined village, one that seemed to be infested with goblins and not an Orc in sight, prompting one of the greenskins to gruffly whisper, "Huh, just a bunch of runts, I thought this was gonna be a fight." The others nodded in disgruntled agreement while Ranma looked over the large Ballistas set up on crude wooden wheels and catapults along with, a giant slingshot that was being loaded with a goblin wearing a pointed helmet of badly beaten iron and a crude set of glider wings strapped to the arms and back.

A questioning glance was met with answers that, yes, that was the slingshot that fired Doom Divers. He made a decision, "No point fighting them, maybe we can scare them into joining us."

The orcs didn't seem satisfied, until Ranma raised a finger, "Not to mention that I seem to remember saying that we should organize who gets what loot from those caravans you all kept raiding behind my back. Remember? The ones you that 'forgot' to tell me about?"

The orcs looked sheepish at the glare; during the week that they had been traveling, they had apparently stumbled onto several trade roads and the orcs wasted no time going behind Ranma's back to attack trade caravans for loot and food until Ranma found out. Pissed off didn't describe it as Ranma chewed out the perpetrators and ordered the loot to be placed into large sacks before they moved off, saying that the loot wouldn't be distributed until they found a place to rest up.

Ranma sighed, "Looks like we found a place to rest up." The orcs and goblins of Ranma's Waaagh didn't bother being quiet as they cheered, which incidentally scared the crap out of the goblins in the ruined village enough that the next Doom Diver they launched flew straight into a tree.

There was no fight really, just goblins running around screaming while running into each other. Indeed the only casualty was when a previously hidden ballista fired a spear into one orc's hip, but the wound wasn't fatal to the greenskin as Ranma stepped forward, and with a swift kick, laid out one of the goblins before placing a slipper-clad foot on the goblin's chest, "Guess what? You've all just been recruited to fight for me."

Seeing nearly seventy goblins start kowtowing to him funnily reminded Ranma of Genma and his Crouch of the White Tiger before he shook his head, if he thought about home right now he'd likely come off as soft and he couldn't afford that.

He turned to the others, "Right, I'm going for a look around to make sure we didn't miss anyone, have fun." The orcs grinned and cracked their knuckles and Ranma walked off quickly, wincing when he heard an almighty crash as the orcs began establishing the pecking order.

Once he was a suitable distance away, Ranma slowed down. Truth be told, he didn't really care if there were any goblins elsewhere in the village- and he certainly didn't care whether or not they served him. While he wasn't complaining about being the "Big Boss" of the Fikskulls, as he tended to think of the greenskins following him, and he had to admit that the extra protection came in handy now and then, he hadn't exactly asked for the role of leader and there were times he found himself missing his comparatively simple life back in Nerima.

...Then again, which life was simpler? Here, he had to wander around and beat people up- that was all that was expected of him. Back in Nerima, he had his old man telling him to marry Akane, Ukyo telling him to marry her for what his old man had done to her, Shampoo and Cologne demanding he marry Shampoo for that damn mess with her first prize, Mousse demanding he stay away from Shampoo, Ryoga demanding he surrender Akane to him and allow him to beat him (like that would ever happen), the Kunos demanding that he admit his inferiority to them and marry them, depending on which form and Kuno (as if!), the old pervert trying to make Ranma become his obedient little lingerie model and grope toy (damn pervert!)... not to mention all the general weirdness that he usually ended up having to sort out, or his own, shouted-down desire to go back to China to take a plunge into the Nanniichuan and accomplish forever what the Instant Nanniichuan had done for barely an hour.

With that in mind, he really had to wonder why he missed his life back there, where he had less freedom than he did here. Because, when all was said and done, he did miss them. He missed Akane, tweaking her metaphorical tail to watch her get angry, or just being with her in companionable silence. He missed Ryoga, the thrill of fighting with someone who was so close to his own level, who actually understood him, in his way. He missed Shampoo and Ukyo, who gave him all the food and affection he could desire (and often more than he could stand). He missed Cologne, a worthy enemy indeed, and even his father, lazy as he'd gotten. Well, all right, he didn't miss Happosai or the Kunos, and Mousse was a pain in the ass he was happy to be rid of, but everyone else.

It was hard to admit this, but Ranma guessed he was feeling homesick, which was kind of weird, seeing as how he'd never felt that way before. Then again, he'd never had a home before either, so it did make some sense. Still, it wasn't so bad; after all, if this world had so many monsters running around, then surely it had wizards of some ilk too, right? All he had to do was find one and get them to send him back home. Nothing simpler, right?

Through all of this thinking, Ranma had been wandering aimlessly, but for a minute or so now he hadn't been able to move. And what was that weird, tickling sensation? When he looked down, he discovered that, during his meanderings, he had somehow picked up a swarm of angry Snotlings, the diminutive greenskins -like particularly tiny and ugly goblins- crawling all over him like ants while doing their best to kill him with rusty nails, twigs, dried mushrooms, broken-off spear heads and whatever other vaguely dangerous rubbish that they had picked up. Unfortunately for them, snotling strength (or lack thereof) meant nothing compared to skin and flesh that regularly resisted impacts in the area of multiple tons of force, even with (pitiful) piercing and slashing weapons.

Ranma promptly reacted in a calm, rational manner.

"GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Ranma started running through the ruins, crashing through weakened walls as he scrabbled to get the tiny greenskins off him, but they held on, partly out of the fact that they wanted to keep trying to hurt him, partly because they were holding on for dear life as Ranma continued trying to get the tiny things off his clothes.

He passed a pair of orcs as they idly kicked another snotling around like a flailing green football when Ranma came out of the underbrush and tripped rolling into the snotling and into another bush all the while screaming for the green midgets to get off him. The orcs glanced at one another, shrugged, found a nearby goblin and started kicking that around instead.

Meanwhile, Ranma smashed through the wall of a more sturdy house and came to a stop, the Snotlings still clinging to him but looking decidedly dizzy as he sighed, "Okay, where was I?"

There was a click and Ranma started dodging as hundreds of small javelins hissed towards him, his movements deftly ensuring they didn't touch him but the still dazed Snotlings didn't fare so well as they were pinned to the wall behind Ranma like bugs under glass, some of them still twitching slightly as the barrage of javelins stopped and Ranma regarded a clicking machine that looked like several ballista fused together before a loud ping caught his attention and the machine collapsed with a resounding crash, revealing a goblin sitting in the pile of parts.

"Dammit! Not again! Agh, what's it going to take to make this thing hold together for more than one volley? Have those damn snots been stealing my nails again?"

As the goblin began to pull out a variety of tools and rummage around the wreckage, Ranma was stunned. Less by what had happened and more by the fact that the goblin had spoken perfect, er, "common" (for lack of a better word). Finally, he decided to make his presence known. "Uh... 'scuse me?" No reaction. "Hey, you!" Still nothing. Ranma was starting to get annoyed here. "I'm talking to you, ya deaf git!"

"Hmm, somethinh didn't stay in..." The goblin's attire was unique to say the least, several sizes too big overall, a pair of dark goggles over the eyes and apart from the box of tools it was rifling through, the weirdest thing about the goblin was the fact that it had what looking to be a sparkplug imbedded in its head, the component sparking as the goblin started rebuilding the contraption, utterly oblivious to the fact that Ranma was right in front of him.

There were probably any number of frustrated comments Ranma could have made right then, but his (mildly horrified) attention was fixated on the sparking piece of metal buried in the goblin's skull. "...Doesn't that hurt?" He finally managed to ask, a rather stupid question, it must be said, but it wasn't every day that you met someone with a machine component thrust into their brain.

The goblin suddenly squeaked in fright and leapt behind a small crate before peeking out, the...component in his head sparking madly as it suddenly spoke in a relatively human voice, "Who the zog are you?"

'Oh, so now you notice me?' Ranma thought sarcastically. "I'm Ranma Saotome. I lead the Fikskull Orcs… you know, the ones who just took over your village?" He supplied helpfully.

The goblin blinked in open confusion as the component stopped sparking, "Wha? A human can't be the boss of orcs; humanss are too weedy to be the boss. And when did they take over, I forgot what day it is."

"Well, I can outfight any Orc. And just now- sheesh, how long have you been in here? Who are you anyway? And what's with the voice- I've never met a greenskin before who could talk normally".

The goblin blinked before it suddenly started again, "Waah! Who'z yoo? Whut're yoo doin' in Gubbinz's shop!"

Ranma blinked, caught off-balance momentarily. "Didn't we just have this conversation? And what happened to your voice- you were talking normal before, but now you're stupid again."

It started running around like a headless chicken before it collided with a low pipe and laid itself out. Ranma blinked as the component sparked again and the goblin woke up, and looked around confused, before turning a glare at Ranma, "Why'd you hit me?"

It blinked and then started cowering, "Sorry! Sorry! Gubbinz was tryin' to get away from the humie!" With that, the goblin started to hold a conversation with...himself?

Ranma watched, dumbstruck, as the goblin argued vehemently with itself, first over what had just happened, then delving into apparently older grievances. He, er, they, uh, whatever, looked ready to start fist fighting before Ranma broke things up with a shrill whistle. "Alright, alright, that's enough of that! Who are you...? Them, they...? Whatever! Just start talking sense or I'm gonna boot you clean out of this... whatever it is."

The goblin blinked again and then stood up, "I'm Bitz." Then he slouched and grinned like an idiot, speaking in the manner that all greenskins did, "And I'm Gubbinzs!"

The goblin straightened up, "We're responsible for making the Spear Chukkas and Rock Lobbas and Doom Divers for that rabble outside." He slouched, "It's fun making the hurtz thingies!"

"...Were you always stuck with one body, or did someone jam you two together?" Ranma asked curiously.

"Wot you talking about? Bitz showed up when I got this thingy in my head and I can't get rid of him!" Gubbinzs apparently at that point, began banging his head on a crate before he visibly restrained himself.

As he straightened up, Ranma was beginning to see when the two personalities apparently would switch over, "Gubbinzs is wrong on that count, rather he is the interloper in my mind who manifested when I received this injury." He tapped the component and it sparked.

"Oh, I see. I thought you were two goblins who were melded into one body..." He shrugged as he noticed the greenskin was staring at him incredulously. "What? It makes perfect sense, and it's totally plausible."

Bitz shook his head, "I don't even want to know." He slouched as Gubbinzs came back on, "Gubbinzs thinkz thiz humie iz missing some screws."

"What are you talking about? Compared to boys who look like girls and turn into ox/yeti things with crane wings and an eel for a tail, a whole family who can't go to the toilet without getting lost, tomboys who can burn water yet think they're world-class cooks, and delusional stick-waving morons who can't see the forest for the trees? It's downright normal." Ranma replied calmly.

The goblin simply stared at Ranma in silence for several minutes, before turning around without a word and got back to work, glancing back once before making a circular motion near one of his ears that was the universal symbol for the person thinking the other was crazy.

"Hey! I'm still talking to you!" Ranma snapped in a peeved voice. Who did these guys think they were, calling him crazy?

The goblin turned back to face Ranma, "So wut yoo want?"

Ranma held up a finger in preparation of delivering a lecture, paused, looked uncertain, and then hesitantly lowered it again. "Damn. Now I've forgotten why I was here in the first place."

The goblin nodded, "Then scram, don't care if you lead a bunch of orcs, I need to try and get this thing put back together before I get back to my work on making that humie bang-powder."

"You mean gunpowder? Why do you need to work on making that? It's not like it's hard to make the stuff." Ranma replied.

"Of course its hard you zogging human! The other humans, and the dwarfs, keep the secret to themselves inside their castles and forts. And its not fair that we greenskins don't get bang-powder, when green is the best at everything! That means that we should have bang-powder and cannons, and...and...and just everything!" He slouched again, switching to Gubbinzs, who nodded.

"Yep, bang-powder is wut Bitz needz to make us greenskins better than everyfing else, but we cantz work out howz to makez the stuff."

"Oh, come on; you've got to be joking me. It's not that hard to make- all you need is sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter." Ranma said. He then looked thoughtful for a moment. "Though I'm not exactly sure what saltpeter is- I think it's some kind of crystal that grows in old dungheaps. Something like that, anyway."

The goblin stopped dead in his tracks before turning to Ranma with a sharp gleam in his eyes, Bitz resuming control. "How do you know that? I've been around enough battlefields to know that only certain humans know about bang-powder… humans who work in their armies."

"Maybe in this weird world, but where I come from, it's common knowledge. Look, it's right here in my high school chemistry book." Ranma said, pulling said book out of storage and flipping through it to the relevant page, ignoring the goblin inventor's disbelieving expression at seeing him pull something out of thin air, before handing the book to him.

"Gimme!" With a quick movement, the goblin began flipping through the pages, before his expression soured, "Wots all dis? Itsa buncha gibberish!"

"It's my native language. I guess I can speak what you greenskins do, but you can't read it." Ranma said. Weird; why would whatever magic that translated his language fail to translate his books? Maybe it was because they had been inside his ki warp when he'd been sent here...

"How do I read it, I wantz to make bang-powder!"

Ranma smirked; he wasn't a conniver like his father or Nabiki, but there were some situations that were just begging to be taken advantage of. "Tell you what, let's make a deal: if I teach you how to read the kanji, you agree to work for me. Deal?"

"Yeah-yeah-yeah! You got a deal!"

The human and the goblin were just shaking hands when a familiar bellow (to Ranma) came echoing into the room.

"Boss? Where ya at? Chow time!"

Neither wasted time with words- Ranma barely had time to snatch the book back before the goblin went running, knowing all too well the sort of 'feeding frenzy' that would be going on at the communal fire pit. Ranma might have less to worry about, being the leader and all, but goblins, even ones as brilliant as Bitz & Gubbinzs, fought for every last scrap, even when there weren't any orcs around.

It was at the evening meal that disaster finally struck, a disaster that Ranma had been dreading all along. He had to admit, he was deeply surprised that it had been put off for so long- around two weeks, wasn't it? Nevertheless, that didn't change the fact that now, thanks to a clumsy band of snotlings, he had transformed into a she in front of the whole Waaagh! ...Who were being strangely quiet about it, come to think of it. Picking out Gragtar from amidst the throng, she pointed at him in her best imperial manner- no sense putting it off any longer.

"Alright, I know what you're going to say, so say it."

"Okay. How'dja do dat?" Gragtar said, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

Ranma, needless to say, was surprised.

"That's it? That's all you've got to say?"

"What else iz there to say?" The ex-Big Boss wondered aloud.

"Oh, forget it. Someone, heat me up some water- I wanna change back." Ranma declared.

After the meal, Bitz (or was it Gubbinz this time?) came up to him and presented him with a rolled up piece of cloth. Upon unrolling it, Ranma found that on the cloth was a detailed map of the land, and now he had a name for where he was. As he mentally went over the travels of the Waaagh, he found himself near the edge of a large river as he started planning to himself.

"Okay, so perhaps we go along this small road here..."

Ranma tapped a small drawing of houses that spanned both sides of the river on his map, "Here, this small village should do it. What's it called? Ah, here we go, its called 'Wurzen', funny name."

Ranma tapped his fingers as he thought things over. "Hmm... now this might be tricky. We did all right against those monsters with that devil-cannon thing, but a place like this is gonna have rifles and cannons and who knows what else lying around. That's going to be a problem. We either need a cunning plan, or enough bodies to soak up the casualties." He trailed off into thoughtful silence, motionless bar the tapping of his fingers.

**_Meanwhile, far away from the ruined village, a different conversation but no less important was playing out in a far larger camp near the fortified and massive town of Wurzen as men in brightly coloured uniforms checked their handguns and a number cannons and mortars were dragged by horse into the town to their positions as more were set up outside the town in carefully sighted positions._**

A grizzled man in plate armour nodded in satisfaction at seeing the preparations and turned to his subordinates, tapping a road on a map that was far more current than the one Ranma had in his possession.

"The greenskins will head along the North Talabec Road if their path is correct, taking the way of least resistance."

General Herschel Kesperin stroked his beard as men raced to and fro inside the camp belonging to soldiers of the Empire of Man. It had taken precious days to assemble the necessary forces, but it would be worth it to prevent another Waaagh from forming, what with the threat of Grimgor Ironhide and worse still out there.

"They will intend to cross the river, where will they do so?" One of the captains under the general's command asked.

Another captain spoke up then, "If they can't take the town, they may have to move upstream to a ford there. It's open ground, and the riverbanks are soft earth, easy for them to get bogged down. We should send a force there just in case."

The general shook his head, "No, the orcs desire a fight above all else; seeing our preparations will boil their blood and make them charge at us, which shall play into our hands as even the warboss will ensure that they charge the town."

"We shall engage them at range using our cannons, with the handgunners and crossbowmen providing support. Our outriders with their weapons will harass and enrage the orcs, drawing them into the range of our guns." The general spoke with a feral smile as he made marks on a small map showing the immediate surrounds of the town showing the battle plan.

"These animals won't know what hit them."

General Herschel then tapped another point on his larger map, "All that fire will certainly cause the orcs to come charging in, so we'll pull back all our men and leave the cannons; even if these unintelligent brutes can somehow work out how to fire the guns, the prospect of loot will cause their discipline, such as it is, to fall apart and allow us to start hitting them again with the cannons and mortars held in reserve."

General Herschel waved to a number of knights in bright red armor who were trading loud and boisterous stories with their fellows as he answered his subordinate's question, "Also, while they may be arrogant and prideful, the Knights Encarmine are skilled enough to hold up an Orc breakthrough long enough for the Hunters of Sigmar to move behind the orcs and slay the Warboss. That will break up the Waaagh's cohesion and allow us to scatter them into the forest broken and defeated."

General Herschel nodded as his captains smiled at the plan, "They will be here is several days once they hit the North Talabec Road, have the lookouts remain sharp for the first sign of the greenskins."

He looked out at the massive army assembled, nearly a thousand men and fifty knights ready to do battle and smiled in anticipation of the battle to come, "Let them come, and we shall show them the might of the Empire."


	6. Chapter 6

**Waaagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry._

A/N: after a long delay, here's the newest chapter of this story. A brief diversion from the usual mayhem, but don't want to get into a rut, now do we? As for what comes afterwards… updates will be sporadic, I admit, but we do have a coherent plan and rest assured that Ranma won't be either depending on luck or getting everything handed to him on a silver platter.

Chapter 6: The Siege, Part 1

"Whaddya mean we can't cross the river?" Ranma Saotome, somewhat reluctant leader of the Fikskull warband and the genesis of the nascent Waaagh that his green-skinned followers were calling 'Waaagh Ranmaaa!' stared at the quivering goblin that had been sent to check the river to see if they could build rafts to get across. Though Ranma remembered sending ten goblins actually...

"Humies boss! Lots and lots of humies! They sent arrers all over the place and got the others you sent!" Ranma winced; so there was a good chance that they'd stumbled on an army… that was just _perfect_. When the orcs gathered around the fire all grinned, Ranma slapped his head as he realized he had said that out loud.

"Any chance we could cross at night, when they're sleeping?" The goblin shook his head again, and Ranma idly considered braining the little green...no, must not hit the only surviving scout in a fit of annoyance. He glared at the goblin again, "Why not?"

"Cause the river's movin' too fast boss! Can't cross cause of all dat rain! We're orcs and gobbos, not rivva trolls." Before Ranma even knew what he was doing, his fist lashed out and walloped the goblin square between the eyes, before Ranma glanced at his clenched fist and wondered why he did that, before shrugging, little green bastard was obviously mouthing off to him, and if he wasn't going to take it from Orcs, why should a bunch of green half-pints be any different.

Shaking his head to clear it of the strange thoughts that had been flittering through it for the last few days, Ranma considered his course of action.

The Waaagh had stalled in front of a fortified river town that straddled both banks of the massive river, and using his stealth skills, Ranma had taken a look to see what he might be up against and remembered wincing at the cannons lining the walls and the large numbers of men armed with swords, pikes and what his history books called flintlock muskets.

If it was just numbers, Ranma knew that the orcs could steamroller over these guys, but the presence of the guns changed that, the Waaagh was big, but not big enough to absorb the casualties the cannons and muskets would inflict before they reached the gates.

In short, Ranma needed to get more orcs, a lot more orcs, and this news about all that archer fire only compounded the problem; that meant that someone had heard him coming, and that wasn't hard, hell the wind was just right for the stink from the boar riders to have reached the town long before them. And that meant that he was looking at an army, likely a big one.

"We need more orcs. Need more goblins. Hell, need more of just about everything." Ranma's brain began working in overdrive as he paced, the Fikskulls and others watching in silence, having come to appreciate the fact that when Ranma began thinking, he usually came up with a good idea, sometimes ones that were a lot more fun than just charging in and smashing everything, though they'd never say that out loud.

Ranma's eyes fell on the goblin that was recovering and then he snapped his fingers, a smile appearing on his face as he turned to the orcs, "Get me the fastest goblins we have, ones that can remember a message. I have a plan."

_XXX_

Da Butchaz had a comfortable life, by orcish standards. The valley they inhabited was secluded enough that it made a good retreat, yet not so isolated that they had to go too far for a good scrap. Game was plentiful, water was plenty, and there was enough shelter that no more than a dozen or so froze to death in winter or burned up in summer wildfires each year. As a result, about three hundred orcs currently inhabited the valley, which now also housed a hundred or so rather battered goblins, the sole survivors of a recent raid against a neighboring tribe. There would normally have been more -after all, there was nothing the average orc liked better than having three or four goblins to run after them- but their leader, Bigma da Butcha, didn't like goblins very much. In fact, that was something of an understatement. Bigmaw hated goblins, as they were the ones who had, when he was a yoof, swarmed him while he was drunk on fungus beer one night in order to rob him, or beat him up, or, well, whatever else it was goblins did when they had something weak and outnumbered. He'd fought his way clear, but his face had been badly scarred in the process, the source of his grudge.

Now, it must be made clear that Bigmaw didn't mind the injury itself (which was what, on earth, would be known as a Glasgow Smile- a slash right through the middle of each cheek, starting at the sides of the mouth, which pulled the mouth into a perpetual smile). After all, it was quite distinctive, quite flashy, and it had given him the name he now carried. In other circumstances, it would have been a scar he'd have been proud to wear. But he'd gotten it at the hands of **goblins**, and so it was an insult- other orcs didn't respect or fear him for it, they sniggered at it! Well, they did until he cut their heads off and stuck them on a stick, anyway.

No, Bigmaw didn't like goblins. _**Not at all**_.

Currently, Da Butcha himself was sitting on his "throne", a vaguely chair-like assemblage of junk, busted armor, broken weapons and, of course, the heads of orcs that had made their amusement at the source of Bigmaw's perpetual grin too obvious. At around 7 feet tall (closer to 7 and a half if he stopped stooping) and 200 kilos (only a quarter of which was armor), he was an impressive specimen of an orc, full of rude health. His little red eyes burned like coals as he stared down at the trembling goblin currently being flanked on either side by two of his bigger (and dimmer- Bigmaw liked dumb henchorks; they tended not to get too uppity and need a kicking, at least all that often) subordinates. In his right hand, he hefted "Da Kleeva" that was his primary weapon, as though practicing before he brought it scything through the goblin's weak flesh. The weapon had been a dwarven greataxe, but in his meaty fist wasn't much more than a rather well balanced hatchet. Ordinarily, he would have chopped the goblin into giblets by now, but his curiosity had persuaded him to stay his hand- this goblin wasn't one of his slaves, but had actually come to the camp- looking for **him**, of all the strange things! He snorted deeply, rather like a drunken bullock, before finally speaking.

"So, whut's dis abawt?" He snarled.

Rickert fought hard to keep from widdling himself. He did not like this, he did not like this at all- oh, who was he kidding? He'd give his left nut to be out of this mess! ...Well, he would, if some git hadn't cut it off in a brawl some eight weeks ago. Still, he swallowed hard and spoke up as loud as he could, trying desperately to act like he wasn't terrified.

"I bring da word of Da Boss. Da Fast Shoota, Da Fikkest Skull, Da Kannon Smasha, Da Big Rock Chukka! I bring Da Challenge!" He declared, in a manner that would have been more impressive if his nerves hadn't reduced his voice to a rather whiny squeak.

"Whut challenge?" Bigmaw grunted. Rickert stared at him, even more nervous now- with his scars, it was impossible to read the orc boss's expression, as it was always fixed in that terrible grin, but Rickert didn't have to be a genius to know that he was growing annoyed. Oh, what was that message again?

Oh yeah, "Da Challenge is dis! Da Boss has found a load of humies in der humie village that sitz on da rivva, a big army of them and is getting ready smash 'em! But Da Boss wants to see who is harder den him! Da Boss challenges any uvva Boss and his Boyz to go and smash them humies by himself, and smash the town to boot! If you can do dat, Da Boss will let you become his Boss!"

"Oh, so dat's whut 'e sayz, eh? Well, dat's fine wid me." Bigmaw slid off oc his throne and strode towards Rickert. The goblin had a bad feeling about this, especially when the guards suddenly stepped aside. "But furst, I needz ta get me 'and in..."

With that, he suddenly lunged forward with a boot, punting Rickert into the sky. The doomed goblin barely had time for a single squeal of despair before Da Kleeva chopped him in half. Bigmaw's everpresent grin widened and he shook his head happily to clear the worst of the gore from his eyes.

"Get movin'!" He roared, throwing his camp into pandemonium as Da Butchaz scrambled to obey.

Meanwhile, back at the temporary basecamp of the Fikskulls, Ranma's followers (however reluctant some of them may be) had concealed themselves in the surrounding wilderness, leaving Ranma to pace back and forth in a convenient clearing as he awaited the first warband's arrival... and continued wrestling with his guilty conscience. He knew that his plan was a sound one in military terms, he knew that this wasn't a world where fights were done just for the hell of it and nobody ever got really hurt, he knew that he couldn't afford to go about breaking this siege in any other way... yet, still, it pained him to resort to this sort of trickery.

Someone from Nerima might have pointed out that Ranma had never been shy about tricking, deceiving or manipulating others before, but Ranma would have promptly replied that he had never done so and led them into life threatening situations before- no, worse, he wasn't accidentally leading them into danger, he was purposely sending them into danger, and with the intention that they would get beaten savagely, if not killed outright. If he any other way to do this, though, he would gladly have taken that option- but he didn't, so he couldn't. He forced himself to halt and pushed the horrified voice down into the deepest, darkest crevices of his mind as the sound of an approaching force became evident. There was no turning back now- time to take the bull by the horns...

_XXX_

Bigmaw was not impressed when he tromped out of the underbrush and found a lone humie standing there looking at him with an unreadble expression and he decided to voice his displeasure, "Wot's dis? Some humie slave to greet Bigmaw Da Butcha? Get yer boss slave! I'm 'ere to have words wiv him!"

The humie simply cracked his neck with that same calm expression, "You want the boss, you're looking at him." Bigmaw felt the jaws of boyz drop before he decided that he should have chopped that gobbo into ribbons instead of two clean pieces. Then he started laughing so hard that tears came to the greenskin's face.

"Yoo? Yoo! Wut kind of stoopid runts wood follow a humie! Humies are soft and weedy, not 'ard like Orcs! Good one humie, now get yer master, Da Boss I wuz supposed ta meet before you meet the business end of me Kleeva!"

Ranma fought down the urge to call out the orc with the scar-induced smile. If there was anything to justify his course of action, this was it. Pushing down his wounded pride, he made himself appear and sound as servile as possible- something that, much to his relief, came to him a lot harder than it did to Genma Saotome.

"Of course, master, I was merely joking. But the master has much better things to do with his time than greet every two-bit would-be boss who comes crawling out of the dirt." He replied, aiming to simultaneously be as charming and infuriating as he could.

Bigmaw snarled, "He finks he's better den me, dat what he finks? I'll show 'im who's better when I get me hands on 'im! Where is he?" He started looking, snarling all the while as he hefted his weapon in preparation for a fight as the boyz backed off slightly, not wanting to get caught in the brawl that was sure to come.

"Oh, around." Ranma replied casually, absently waving a hand for emphasis. "If you want to see him, though, you gotta prove you're hard enough first." Here he put on his best mocking smile, the one that could get any Nerimite martial artist fired up and wanting to beat his head in so hard they stopped thinking about what they were doing. "Attack the town. Bring back the head of a human 'boss' and you can see him. Unless you're afraid...?"

Bigmaw's face stretched grotesquely and Ranma realized that the greenskin was smiling as he repressed the urge to puke at the leer, "Awright, if dat's how he wants to play, den fine! I'll be back with the head of all those humies, den we'll see who's the 'arder Boss!" He turned and regarded his mob, "Awright yoo gitz, its time to show this bastard what Da Butchaz can do! Waaaagh!"

With a hearty "Waaagh!" in return, the orcs turned and started running in the direction of the town, intent on proving the mysterious 'Boss' and his mouthy slave just what they were made of.

Bigmaw's trademark grin was at its widest stretch; this was what he, what every orc, lived for! A fight! And a **real** fight at that, against something besides those stupid goblins! He tore through the brush heedlessly in his headlong flight, only vaguely aware of the presence of his boyz at his back and sides, blind to everything but the burning heat pounding in his skull, rushing in his veins, pulsing in his heart. *This* was what it was all about!

On the walls of Wurzen, the artillery-equipped soldiers loaded their weapons in smooth, practiced haste and drew bead on the approaching rabble of greenskins, though not a bolt was loosed nor a shot fired as they anticipated the command of their sergeants. Though the force was a mere three hundred or so orcs, they anticipated greater force being deployed against them soon and so sought to preserve every precious scrap of ammunition. Closer and closer the greenskins came, and still there was no word, no gesture from their commanding officers. Then, at last, the signal was given - shoot!

The **krak!** of flintlock guns discharging and the **fft!** of crossbows hurling their bolts filled the air, projectiles of both sorts whistling through the air in the general direction of Da Butchaz. Some went off tangent, harmlessly embedding in the earth in front or behind or beside a targeted orc. Others landed, but failed to do any real harm- Bigmaw grunted in pain as one crossbow slammed into his shoulder like a fist from the gods, but his constitution was far greater than a human's and so he was able to ignore the pain and continue his advance unphased. When a bullet tore through the side of his gut, barely nicking his side in contrast to the bolt embedded in his flesh, he didn't even feel it.

Other orcs weren't so lucky; the air filled with howls of pain and screams of equal parts agony and rage as lethal wounds were delivered, entrails spewing from rents in bellies, throats slit open and magenta gore spurting like a macabre fountain, liquefied brain matter gouting from bullets that had managed to punch clean through skulls or, more frequently, slammed in through an eye socket and then ricocheted in the skull's interior, turning the orc's brain into puree.

Bigmaw howled his fury as some of the orcs broke from the withering hail of fire, turning and fleeing, either with or without wounds, and screamed profanities at them, demanding they return to the fight like proper fighters should. How could they let themselves be discouraged by a few dead wimps? That was the work it worked in fights! To further emphasize his words he waved Da Kleeva in the air- hey, why couldn't he feel himself holding it any more? Stopping for a second, he looked down and saw the axe lying on the ground, his hand still clutching it.

Ignoring the bullets and bolts that slammed into the ground and the luckless orcs around him, he stared stupidly at the slowly bleeding (compared to a human) stump of his right wrist for a second, then reached down and picked his weapon up with his other hand. Swinging it once or twice to get a proper heft for it, he bellowed in defiance and resumed his charge. More projectiles rang through the air around him, but he refused to surrender even as fresh bolts slammed into his body, their barbed heads digging deeply into his flesh, and bullets shattered his bones. He was just about to open his mouth for another roar when a sharp whistling **crack** noise filled his world. On sheer inertia he staggered forward a few steps more, then collapsed onto his face, blood flowing steadily from the gaping hole in his head where two marksmen had drawn bead on the same target.

It was the death of Bigmaw that finally did the Butchaz in, the horde breaking and running for the forest, the cheers of the humans behind them ringing in their ears as the last stragglers vanished into the woods.

It took a few minutes for them to gather again, at which point one wounded fighter put forward the important question, "Wot do we do now?"

There were glances before another spoke up, "Lets go back to da valley, we can come back when dere's not so many humies." The others agreed in low murmurs as they began trudging slowly and with more than a few stumbles, back to their valley. It wasn't until they reached the clearing that had been the meeting place with that humie slave who sent them towards that slaughter did one of the orcs find the rage, easy enough in the circumstances, to suddenly scream out an oath.

"I ever see that humie bastard, and his Boss, I'll skin 'em alive! I'll kill the bastard!" The other began roaring their agreement before a shape dropped noiselessly down in front of them, drawing their attention, "You! We gotta bone ta pick with you!"

Ranma had to fight to keep his expression blank and his voice neutral. About a hundred orcs remained of the warband he'd "encouraged" had managed to struggle away from the killing fields. Of those, very few had escaped without at least some wounds. "Me? What could you possibly want with me?" He asked, his attempt at innocence clearly faked.

"You bastard! You're boss knew we'd get bashed! Where is he? We'll bash him!" Another roar of agreement went up as weapons were hefted in preparation for another fight, murder in their eyes.

"Like I said before, **I** am the boss." Ranma proclaimed, standing up straight and removing all trace of civility from his voice, taking strength for the chill he placed in his tone and the words he spoke.

The orc that had become the temporary leader managed a barking laugh, "Yeah? And what kind of orc would follow you?"

At this, Ranma gave an icy smirk. "Well, since you ask..." At this, he snapped his fingers loudly, and was pleasantly surprised when his prearranged signal went off without a hitch- perhaps beating up the most obvious troublemakers beforehand, after this particular tribe had left on their suicide run, had been a good idea after all. All of his orcs burst from the undergrowth, wielding their weapons, clad in armour, and bearing evil grins of bloodthirsty anticipation.

The survivors stopped dead in their tracks at seeing the group before them and began glancing around uneasily as the realization that they were now in front of a group of orcs that were fresh and ready for battle sunk into their skulls. The leader however, was not so easily intimidated and without even a thought about his actions, charged with a roar of challenge, intent on cutting down the human in front of him.

Ranma had anticipated something like this, so it was simplicity itself to perform his usual trick of flowing around his enemy's blow as though made from water, using the orc's own strength and momentum against him in a technique that was so basic he never would have bothered using it in Nerima. But he was no longer in Nerima, and so the next thing his confused assailant knew, he was lying on his face in the dirt with an arm tucked painfully behind him and something small, flat and surprisingly heavy pushing into the back of his head.

"I'll ignore that, this time, because I need boyz like you in the fight. Now, are you willing to fight for me, or do I break your head here and now and pick someone else to lead these orcs?" Ranma asked.

The orc however, was in no mood to negotiate and with a bellow, tried to throw Ranma off and get to his feet.

It almost succeeded. Almost. Unfortunately for him, Ranma had more than enough strength and agility to keep his position. This was the outcome Ranma had dreaded, had hoped wouldn't come to pass, but, alas, this orc had refused him and he could not brush this off, not without losing the respect of the other greenskins around him. Mentally whispering a quick prayer to his victim's soul, asking for forgiveness, Ranma suddenly stomped down with the foot he had placed on the back of the orc's neck, instantly snapping its neck in a quick and painless death.

That stopped the orcs in their newfound confidence before one orc glanced around and slowly asked, "Whut's your name Boss?"

"Call me Ranma." The Saotome youth said, swallowing hard against the feeling of nausea that crept up on him.

There was a moment of long silence from the wounded survivors, before the orc who had spoken up asked, "Whut do we do now Boss?"

"Get yourselves back into cover and stay quiet; I think I hear someone else coming down the road again, so I need to be ready to play my role again. And take this with you when you go- leaving dead bodies lying around makes for awkward questions."

As one, the orcs nodded and grabbed the corpse of their fallen comrade and began dragging it into the underbrush, leaving a sickly magenta slime-trail behind them as they tromped after the Fikskulls, leaving Ranma, and a trail of blood on the grass of the clearing.

Ranma rolled his eyes, but repressed the urge to sigh. Oh well, he was sure he could find some way to spin it to his advantage on the odd chance that one of the new arrivals did have more brains than was customary.

_XXX_

"General, another runner from Wurzen, he reports another attack by a small band of orcs, this one at least two-hundred strong." General Herschel looked up from his maps as his staff continued their work.

"Another small warband...and only three hours after that last one led by the orc wielding a dwarven axe. Captain, walk with me, I want your views on this situation." The man nodded and fell in alongside his commander as the pair inspected the camp, General Herschel beginning the conversation, "Captain, what do you make of this situation? Two warbands, company-strength at minimum, and signs indicating that another is about to hit us again, and each time they are repulsed by our crossbows, our marksmen's muskets, thank Sigmar for the Hochlanders, and the few times we've needed to employ our artillery."

General Herschel stopped to glance at the town, and the forest beyond, "And every time, instead of immediately rushing back into the attack after we break them the first time, they vanish into that forest. What is your opinion on this Captain?" The man shrugged.

"Obviously, its a sign that we're scaring them so badly, they've lost the will to fight." General Herschel shook his head.

"These are orcs captain, the only thing that can scare them is if they can't fight. No Captain, what we're looking at here is strategy." The man spluttered in shock at the General's words while he continued, "All these warbands are being absorbed into a larger warband, perhaps a Waaagh of massive size, the casualties taken by the charging warbands used to demoralize them enough to be integrated into the Waaagh without protest, and we Captain, are providing the means to create those casualties while the Warboss in charge, waits for his chance to strike fully."

The Captain glanced at his General in shock, "But that's impossible, not even Grimgor, Sigmar take him, showed much in the way of true strategic thinking, even the act of planning ahead for him was only in hours, maybe a day, certainly not the days, perhaps weeks it would take for our supplies to run out."

General Herschel shook his head, "This Warboss doesn't have to wait for the supplies to run out, he just has to wait until we get word that the troops are needed elsewhere, or someone, perhaps one of those Knight Encarmine, gets too cocky and creates an opening. Even worse, our own regular troops may get lax, don't look at me like that Captain, I've seen entire battlelines collapse because the officers and troops began to let down their guard in combat."

The Captain was silent for a moment, "What do we do then General?"

General Herschel glanced back out at the forest beyond Wurzen, and he could swear that he felt a set of eyes belonging to a powerful foe staring back at him, "We wait Captain. Sooner or later, the patience of the orcs will run thin and the Warboss' hand will be forced to commit to a full attack. Keep the men ready and alert, the enemy may come any day, or they may be getting ready at this very minute."

The Captain saluted, "At once General."

_Apologies for the crude scene breaks, but I wasn't sure how to make anything more refined. Hopefully, our next chapter for this work won't take so long before being written up. As always, read and review and let me know what you think._


	7. Chapter 7

**Waaagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry._

A/N: sorry for the delays, but our beta has been having problems on his end. Well, at long last, here's the conclusion to the siege. Hope that it makes the wait forgivable, and that it doesn't come off as too hokey. Still, better this version then the original- no "Super Moko Takabisha" here!  
Oh, and for those who are wondering, Shirotaka (maybe with a different name) will get brought in as Ranma's mount at some point. We just want to get Ranma more established before we start adding the more monstrous units to his force. As for Gitzduffed (and it's always surprised me that nobody got the pun in his name- guess it's an Aussie thing only), well, we'll see; Ranma will be getting Shamans at some point, you can count on that.

Chapter 7: The Siege, Part 2

A week had passed since the Imperial Army mustered under General Herchel Kesperin has blockaded the orcs at the fortified town of Wurzen that straddled the mile wide expanse of the River Talabec. Hundreds of orcs had been repulsed, but the satisfaction felt by many of the troops was tempered by the sense of anxiety that was being felt by their leader, even the normally boisterous and loud Knights Encarmine were silent in his presence as the General made his rounds of the defences.

It was then that one day, after a merciful moment of peace during what the soldiers had taken to calling 'the Phony Siege', that General Herschel called all his senior officers together and made his announcement.

"Gentlemen, I have long had the feeling that our enemy has been holding back his forces in preparation for a massive attack, organizing his orcs into formations to cause the greatest amount of damage. Now, we must be ever more vigilant, because I have a feeling that the attack will come within the hour, and when it does, the battle for Wurzen will truly begin."

And then a runner came into the tent, wheezing for breath, "General! Movement in the forests!"

General Herschel Kesperin nodded as he checked his sword and shield, "Come gentlemen, let us go meet our guests who have rudely kept us waiting for so long." As the various officers and senior knights went to their stations, the cannons and mortars stationed on the riverbank began to thunder once more.

XXX

The glade where the greenskins had encamped was now a sea of churned earth and tree stumps, over a thousand orcs and goblins crammed into the spot of ruin, trees being chopped down and crudely hacked apart for shields and instruments of siege. Gragtar walked through the crowd, a seeming anarchy, yet with clear delineations if you knew what to look for. He passed by bands of wretched goblins carrying ramshackle ladders and suspicious looking orcs, heading for a blazing fire at roughly the center of the desolation. There, he found the human he was forced to call "master" tending to great iron cauldron, currently simmering under a thick lid.

"What's up?" Ranma asked Gragtar, not even bothering to look back from where he was busying himself at a crude table, studying over what could only charitably be called a map.

"Dere ain't no food left fer miles, 'umie. We'z eaten it all, an' I don' fink dere's any more boyz a'comin'. We'ze gotta get out of here soon, or dese boyz iz gonna start eatin' their boots- an' then dey'll start on each uvver."

"I know, I know. We really need more fighters, though; I don't want us to get slaughtered. The point of fighting is to win, not to die in battle." Ranma muttered. "Still, needs must and all that- we'll set out once they've got those siege towers put together."

Gragtar nodded. "So, uh, whut's in da pot?" He asked hungrily; even he was feeling the bite of hunger now.

Ranma turned around and wordlessly lifted the lid. Gratgar promptly gagged on the indescribably horrid stench that rose from it. If he was human, he would have gone green. As he was an orc, he was already green. "Whut is dat stuff?" He demanded.

"I call it… 'Stew ala Muck'. Old boots, hooves, bones, worms, tree bark, grass, wild beehives, worn-out leather… this is all the vaguely edible stuff that's left here. Want a slurp?"

"No zogger'z dat hungry!" Gragtar rumbled.

"Suit yerself." Ranma said, calmly replacing the lid. "But there's plenty who will eat it… as if I needed more proof that we need to get out of here."

The two looked up as the sound of high-pitched screaming split the air, Ranma taking several steps and then calmly holding his arms out, ensuring that the deranged goblin inventor Bitz fell into his grasp as though he'd just landed in a nice, deep, mud puddle. Only less dirty. And a bit nicer smelling. "What happened?" Ranma asked his chief engineer.

"Just testin' out da new Rock Lobba; works fine." Bitz answered calmly, as though this happened at least once a day. Which wasn't true, by the way. More four or five times a week.

"And the siege towers?"

"They're just made out of wood and vines and whatever nails we had to spare. They're done." Bitz sniffed haughtily.

"Good." Ranma said, dumping the goblin on the ground. He kicked the cauldron over, its vile contents snuffing out the fire beneath it in an undeservedly horrible death. "Listen up, meat heads!" He roared. "It's time to go and break something! You with me?"

"Waaagh!" Came the cry, orcs and goblins scrambling to their feet and into their respective units, ready, willing and eager to finally get into a fight.

"Forward!" Ranma decreed imperiously.

"Forwaaard!" Howled Gragtar.

"Hey, yoo gonna stand dere shoutin', or iz yoo gonna come wid us and krak some skullz?" One of the new black orcs called to Ranma, many of the greenskins having already charged on ahead.

Ranma blinked as this fact sank in, then took off. "Wait for me, you lunkheads! Oi, somebody come back here and get these siege towers! I didn't make you build them to see if you could tell your thumbs from a block of wood!"

XXX

**Crack** The sound was one of many as rifles fired off their shots into the approaching mob of orcs as crossbows loosed their bolts with the quite hiss of their flight to mark their passage, and the roars of pain from their targets.

Suddenly, a cannonball landed in the thickest knot of orcs, smashing the greenskins apart in a gory geyser of blood, body parts and dirt, finally putting the orcs to flight towards the forest as the men cheered. One, a sergeant from the Reiklands, spat at the dust cloud formed by the fleeing orcs.

"Good riddance to you all, filthy green vermin. Come back when you got some spine."

His men chuckled at the taunt before a sound began to reach their ears, the sound of warcries and insults and raucous laughter as the trees beyond to shake. Suddenly the first orcs sprang from the underbrush, followed by ten more, then another ten, a hundred more, until a full thousand or more orcs and goblins tore their way free from the forest, two large siege towers being pushed forwards behind them.

"Sigmar preserve us..." The sergeant glared at the man who spoke.

"More like Sigmar damn them! Pick your targets and fire in your range! Show these green bastards what the men of the Empire are made of! For Sigmar! For the Empire!" The battlecry was taken up along the line as the men of the Empire prepared for the true battle to commence.

XXX

"Alright boys, first ones to the fight are... the first ones to the fight..." Ranma declared, trying and pretty much failing to rouse his greenskinned comrades. Fortunately for him, orcs considered being the first one into the battle to be a pretty worthwhile goal in and of itself, so it did actually inspire them. "Gotta work on those speeches." Ranma muttered to himself as he raced along with the others.

There was no formal order, no grand battle plan. Ranma didn't have the experience to come up with such things, and "Charge!" tended to be the basic (and only) plan for the average Boss. Ranma was depending on the speed, numbers and strength of his fellows to make it to the walls- if they could get inside, then the defenders would lose their terrain advantage and he was positive the might and savagery of his barbaric underlings would carry the day. But he did have enough common sense to arrange it so that the ladder-carrying goblins and orcs were the main body of his troops, the boar riders were his spear head, the ballistae and catapult had been pushed on the edges so that they were less likely to misaim and hit his own troops, and the archers had been loaded into the siege towers to provide cover fire as the footsloggers shoved the ramshackle vessels along.

He was distracted from his concerns -this was, after all, only his second major battle, and this time the enemy was a lot more dangerous then those psychotic monsters he had fought- by running headfirst into an orc who was running in the opposite direction, knocking the orc to the ground and being shaken back to awareness "What do you think you're doing?" He snapped, too aggravated to notice the orc's expression of equal parts confusion and disbelief. "The fight is **that** way! How do you get that turned around? Even goblins ain't that stupid! Now get up and get back in there, ya wimp!"

With that, he resumed running, weaving through the stunned mob as he did so. Behind him, the startled orcs of Morglor's Manglers shared slack-jawed looks with each other, then shrugged and decided to follow the others. They had no idea who the human was or what he thought he was doing, but if this many orcs were running towards the town, then they guessed that they ought to tag along as well.

XXX

"Hans! Hans, get your ass over here!" Captain Kal Jerrek snarled as he fired his crossbow at the approaching horde, uncaring if it missed since the orcs were thick enough that a near miss would hit another greenskin as a brown-haired youth appeared next to him as he continued, "Get to the engineer in charge of those cannons, we need to take out those siege towers before they get any closer! See if you can get the mortars dropping shells on top of their siege engines!" As he said this a boulder smashed across the parapets, taking a group of men down with it, "And hurry boy!" The youth nodded and dashed for the stairs down from the walls even as a javelin from the goblin-crew battery flitted through the air to slam into an archer, sending spear and man flying off the wall.

Engineer Hurman Krumple frowned as he looked through his spy glass and rattled off corrects to the cannon battery he was overseeing when a brow-haired youth arrived panting for breath, "Captain Jerrek requests that your cannons hit the greenskin towers, as quick as possible!" He was off towards the mortar batteries before the engineer could say a word.

Shrugging, Hurman Krumple turned to the cannon crews, "All right then men, position your guns at these angles..." The cannon crews, hard men who were long-practiced in their particular art, got to work turning and sighting the guns. Within minutes, the guns were sighted and the engineer called out, "Fire in sequence! Now! Fire!" The resulting sound was like rolling thunder as heavy solid shot flew across the sky.

XXX

Ranma's attention was easily caught by the sound of the cannons detonating. It took only a moment to realize just where they were aimed, and for just how this would impact Ranma's plans. Eyes wide, he dashed in front of the closest tower, eyes tracking the first cannonball, and he leapt into the air, time enough for just one thought to flash through his mind... 'This is gonna hurt like a bitch...'

His fist lashed out with all of the strength he could manage, colliding with the propelled ball of pig iron with an audible **clang**, Ranma's eyes stretching wide and his teeth gritting as the pain rocketed up his arm, the steel denting where his clenched hand had struck, the two locked together for what felt like an age... and then, the force with which Ranma had punched the cannonball made itself felt, the shot rocketing right back the way it came, slamming into the barrel of the cannon it had come from with sufficient force to crack the weathered metal, rendering it useless.

Ranma dropped to the ground, clutching at his arm and swearing repeatedly. When he realized that the greenskins had actually skidded to a halt, oblivious as the other cannonballs now dropped harmlessly (well, alright, a couple of goblins were killed, and one orc did run into an ally's weapon while not looking where he was going and fatally impaled himself), he gave a forced grin and punched the air with his arm.

"Nothing is impossible!" He cried. The orcs roared and howled with glee and then resumed their charge, while Ranma promptly began cradling his arm again. "Ow, ow, ow, ow-ow-ow-ow fucking ow! I really don't want to try that again..." He hissed, forcing his ki into the wounded limb in order to accelerate the fusing of bones.

XXX

"A human...? There's a human leading these beasts?" From his position on the wall, having seen the counterpunch sent to the cannonball, an Empire Captain came to the only logical conclusion that a man raised in the Old World could come up with, a witch! He turned to his crossbowmen, "Aim for the human in their number!" There was a moment's hesitation as they took aim at a person who in all honesty was merely a boy in their eyes, but they followed orders regardless as the cry came, "LOOSE!" and forty crossbow bolts hissed towards Ranma.

Suddenly, there was a blur of movement as the bolts flew harmlessly past and the boy was now rushing towards them, the Captain firing his own handguns into the fray, "Can't you curs shoot straight?"

"How in the name of Sigmar can we hit something that moves like that?" The captain was sorely tempted to kill the impertinent commoner who had said that comment but couldn't even form a reply as a lucky arrow from one of the siege towers sprouted in his ear, the man toppling like a dead chicken as the sergeant took control.

"Ignore the boy, take out those archers before they get any closer! With open relief the crossbowmen shifted their aim, glad to be able to shoot at something that didn't dodge like magic, men such as them couldn't taken on such sorcerer's tricks for long; let another group try their luck at the boy.

_XXX_

Ranma's warriors were practically at the gates now; orcs had fallen, goblins had fallen, men had fallen, the boar riders were trying to smash down the gate, but were forced to retreat as the defenders dropped arrows and rocks and boiling oil from above.

Ranma saw that some of the ladders, the ones that hadn't fallen apart while being carried at least, had made it to the wall and orcs were pushing Goblins up the ladders before following them up the ladders and he came to a disturbing revelation as he watched goblins either leap onto the faces of defending soldiers or were thrown up there by the climbing orcs, "It's gonna take too long to get anybody up there at this rate, specially with those crappy ladders."

As if to prove his point, one of the ladders creaked and fell apart from the weight of the orcs climbing it, sending the greenskins tumbling down while several men managed to push another backwards, the ladder wobbled straight in the air for several seconds, before collapsing on itself. Thankfully, enough of the ladders were surviving the abuse being thrown at them to get orcs and goblins onto the walls as Ranma came up to Gragtar in a blindspot of the enemy fire.

"Where's the damn siege towers?" He hollered; he could probably scale the wall single-handedly, but even he couldn't fight them all off alone.

"One busted a wheel, the other's stuck in a ditch- they can't get here." Gragtar shouted, using a crude tower shield to try and protect himself. "Some uv da boyz iz tryin' ta get a batterin' ram, but if yoo've got some trick up yer sleeve, I suggest ya pull it out now!"

Ranma's mind raced; if there was one thing he was proud of besides his martial arts skill, it was his ability to come up with a plan under fire... okay, this time was a little bit more literal then normal, but the principal remained the same. Realizing that the presence of greenskins on the walls had distracted the humans standing over the gate, Ranma spun on his heel and charged at it. Now, people from Nerima were, understandably, in something of the habit of comparing the various martial artists who tended to frequent their township. And it was the general consensus that of them all, Ryoga was the physically strongest, with Ranma coming a distinct second to the Eternally Lost Boy. This consensus rather annoyed Ranma, as he knew that the reason for it was the fact that Ryoga had difficulties with controlling his strength- the average person saw how, whenever Ryoga was the least bit distracted, rock crumbled and steel was warped under his clumsy fingers, and assumed that it was a sign of vast strength. Ranma, however, knew that it was a sign of underdeveloped restraint- the reason why Ryoga destroyed things unless he was deliberately careful was because he hadn't had the same training in self-control and finesse that Ranma and even Shampoo or Ukyo had received. Akane was bordering on the same issue, but in her case it was more her uncontrolled temper then lack of training.

The long and short of it was that Ranma, in truth, was easily as strong as his rival was, and he was now set to prove that. Charging across the mangled earth he leapt in a ferocious jump-kick at the hardened wood of the main gates. They visibly shuddered, cracks shooting through the thick material, but held up, Ranma using the rebound to flip through the air a safe distance away, one hand clawing at the earth to arrest his backward momentum and help him hurl himself forward with greater strength. Again the gates shook, the wood splintering, but still they held- but just barely, this time. Unaware that the greenskins had seen his feat of strength and were gathering behind him, seeing more potential here than in climbing the rickety ladders (though a continuous stream of goblins was still climbing the ladders as fast as they could, fearful of the bigger and stronger orcs), Ranma let out an ululating howl of self-encouragement and hurled himself at the gates for a third blow.

This time, with a mighty crash, they shattered, practically wrenched off of their hinges and the locks torn to pieces by the sheer force of Ranma's blows as he forced them inwards. Ranma sucked air deeply into his lungs, then bellowed an order to advance... turning around and just barely repressing a yelp as several dozen hulking greenskins promptly rushed at him, and the opening he was standing in. Naturally, Ranma took off running, instinctually fearful that the orcs might trample him in his enthusiasm- but the orcs, caught up in the excitement of battle, continued following at his heels, instinctually figuring that Ranma must want to lead the charge. They were a little confused when Ranma, in his flight to try and get out of the way, led them straight at a house; was he going to crash?

However, while the rich and powerful of this world might dwell in stone and mortar, the average person made due to wood and plaster and straw, at most. As a result, the house posed all the resistance to Ranma that a sheet of cardboard posed to a charging bull. He hit the wall and tore straight through it in a shower of splinters, swatting aside or crushing underfoot anything that remained in his path and smashing straight through the door on the other side- coincidentally greatly startling a band of soldiers rushing to the walls, who tried to attack Ranma but found the martial artist slipping through their blows like greased lightning, a flurry of punches, kicks and chops scattering them as he slipped through their ranks and ran on past them. They didn't even have a chance to recover before the orcs, hot on Ranma's heels, plowed into and over them, thumping them and running, too distracted to even stay behind and make sure they'd killed them all in their rush.

Upstreet and downstreet, left, right, half-circle, diagonal turn, Ranma ran this way and that in order to try and shake off the orcs, smashing through anything and anyone in his way. The orcs themselves were rather enjoying this as houses collapsed in their wake and they steamrollered over any humans in their path. Still, they were getting a little confused.

"So, where'z we goin'z?" One of the brighter orcs asked aloud.

"Don't arsk me, I'z follerin' yoo." One puffing orc gasped in replied.

"Round 'n' round 'n' round we goez, where we stopz, no zogger knowz!" Chimed one smartass greenskin, hidden in the scrum. The confusing path that Ranma had been taking finally stopped as he leapt to the side to avoid a crossbow bolt. Landing in a crouch he moved aside as the greenskins following him crashed into the crossbowmen and began hacking them apart.

The defenders of the town were surely being pushed back as Ranma once again got back in the front and began leading the orcs on a more sedately paced rampage towards the beleaguered defenders. Captains and Sergeants called for a last stand, but the men had seen and endured to much and the sight of the houses collapsing and more orcs stomping through the gates broke their spirits, the battleline began falling to pieces as Ranma approached and he saw men running in droves.

The crews of a nearby cannon were under no such illusions of being able to retreat, and indeed would never leave their gun behind without one last parting shot at the orc tide. So the powder was stacked up and just as the first orcs got within reach to grab and pummel them, they put the torch to their cannon just as Ranma arrived. The thunderclap of the explosion deafened Ranma and he was faintly aware that he was flying through the air along with pieces of other orcs. In his stunned state, the pigtailed Warboss was unable to position himself for a 'soft' landing and he hit an intact house with a crunch of shattering wood as the world turned black.

XXX

General Kesperin saw the explosion of the cannon, and saw that more crews were torching barrels of powder as well, the explosions shattering the wooden frames the cast-iron guns were held on and taking greenskins with them until they wised up to the suicidal move. He shook his head, "What a waste." He turned on his horse to see the line of men retreating from the battle as the Greenskins began celebrating their victory, and it would be a pause since there was reports that whoever had been leading this Waaagh, that cunning hidden opponent of his, had been killed in the first cannon explosion, so the in-fighting would buy much needed time. Nevertheless, he hastened to organize the retreat; he wanted to get away from here and ready his troops for a fresh assault while the greenskins fought and bickered over their new leader. Those soldiers who could not manage to escape sold their lives as dearly as they could, but in the end all perished beneath the green horde.

XXX

A couple of hours later, the mainstay of what had been Waaagh! Ranma was busily looting and pillaging all of worth from the town of Wurzen, while the commanders had 'commandeered' a former merchant's home to settle the business of who would lead them now that the human was dead. So far, it was Starhamma, with his natural bulk, temper and grim demeanor, who was taking the dominant role. He had just pummeled Burna into submission and was now glowering at all of the other Big Bosses.

"I lead uz naw! Any uv yoo got a problem wit dat?"

"Yeah, I got a problem with that!" Came an irate voice, seconds before a heavy block of wood landed on Starhamma's head and knocked him out cold, his collapsing form revealing the form of his attacker... Ranma Saotome. "Just what do you lot think you're doing?" He snapped angrily.

"It'z a ghost!" yelped one of the newer Big Bosses.

"Don't be stoopid, it'z just a trick!" Said another newcomer, who walked over to Ranma and grabbed his pigtail…

…Whereupon Ranma's leg promptly shot up and hit him square in the fork of his pants. "That feel like a trick?" Ranma snarked as the orc keeled over and fainted. "Honestly, one measly little house falls on me, and the next thing I know, you're all declaring me dead!"

"How cum yoo ain't dead?" Gragtar grunted, feeling both strangely pleased and somewhat irritated. He told himself that it was because this meant he'd have a chance to kill the human himself.

"Oh, please." Ranma said, with a casual wave of his hand. "I'm not so weak and frail as that."

"Weak 'n' frail?" The orcs chorused incredulously. They stared at the downed orcs, and then at the human. "Never crossed our mindz, boss."

"Well, see that it doesn't. I'm gonna get something to eat- we'll camp here for the night, and then we'll set the place on fire in the morning."

"...Why'z we gonna set da place on fire?" Gragtar asked in a confused tone.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do?" Ranma asked.

"Uh... not really."

"Oh well, never mind, I'll figure out where we're going tomorrow. Right now, I want something to eat." Ranma casually spun on his heel and walked away.

"...Dat'z wun strange humie." One of the Big Bosses commented after Ranma was safely out of earshot. Nobody argued with him.

_And at long last this chapter has been posted. I apologize again for the delay and we'll try to see that the next one comes out sooner. Now, while the general outline of the story is set, the finer details are more ambiguous, so if you'd like to see Ranma's army challenge a specific enemy (Vampire Counts, for example) and/or a specific mission (a raid on a river caravan, for example), then just say so in your reviews and we'll see about incorporating your idea/suggestions. I do ask that you don't suggest Special Characters (Gimgor Ironhide, Mannfred Von Carstein, Bugman, Archaon, etc); I don't feel confident enough to try and use such established characters. Anything else, though, is fair game._


	8. Chapter 8

**Waaagh! Ranma!**

_Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi. Warhammer Fantasy is the property of Games Workshop. I don't either; I am simply a fan with more than a few bats in his belfry._

A/N: well, this took a long time, and we apologize for that. We've been distracted with other projects, and then our beta for this had lots of real life issues to handle. We'll try and get the next one out sooner, I promise. For those of you waiting for the next chapter of "Chasing the Rainbow", the second draft has just been sent to the beta and it should be ready for publishing soon.

Chapter 8: Castle Crashers

_Entry from the journal of Ranma Saotome_

Day... I don't have the faintest clue.

I decided to keep a journal of my travels through this strange world, not really sure why. I'll admit it's the most intelligent conversation I'm likely to get around here. I salvaged this from the ruins of Wurzec, on the river Talabec... at least, I think it was the Talabec; these maps I've found make it clear that I'm still in the middle of the Middle Mountains; I just crossed the otherwise nameless river that flows down from them when I conquered Wurzen. The biggest city hereabouts is this place called Middenheim; between what the orcs have told me of it, and the tales I've heard from them of something called the "Storm of Chaos", I've decided that heading that way is the last thing I want to do. Not only am I no world conqueror, I don't intend to get my head blown off by a cannonball. We've kept going straight through the mountains, and we're now somewhere to the northwest of Middenheim; there's a pass that'll take us out into the Drakwald Forest, and we can keep going through that and nobody should follow us. We'll go through Nordland and roughly follow the Great North Road down to the Grey Mountains- they tell me that they're prime Orc country, and there's easier pickings beyond them in Brettonia.

Simple plan, right? Shouldn't be any problems? Yeah, right. Turns out there's some sort of powerful vampire in some lost fortress set over the pass. The place is crawling with hundreds of the undead- skeletons and zombies and I don't wanna know what the fuck else. We almost got our asses chewed on when we blundered into a big party- just barely managed to fight our way to safety. Not that 'safety' is really safe- there's four ravaged tribes and a shaman, an orc magic user, already crammed here, and us blundering in wasn't too welcome. Of course, there's more of us then there are of them, but with all them walking dead things on our doorstep, none of us want to pick a fight. These greenskins like to rumble even more than I do, but they aren't suicidal. Instead, their leaders made a deal with us; if I can knock out the vampire in the fort, all of the dead things will either collapse without its black magic to sustain them, or wander off mindlessly into the woods. If that happens, the pass will be open- and these tribes will join up with me. Well, doesn't look like I have a choice...

The fort's heavily guarded; I don't particularly want to risk a frontal attack, especially with these "allies" at my back. Instead, I've selected a number of particularly tough and relatively loyal orcs. Strika is one of Broketoof's mob, but he's managed to pick up a crossbow from somewhere and is particularly accurate. If all else fails, I'm confident he can manage to skewer the damn bloodsucker long enough for one of us to pull its head off. Gragtar makes no bones he wants his old job back, but he's tough, stubborn, confident, and surprisingly dependable in his untrustworthiness. Almost like a greenskinned, more ugly version of Ryoga... anyway. Da Ape is some kind of mutant orc I found wandering the mountains- all orcs look kind of like gorillas, but Da Ape is the only orc I've ever seen with hair. Well, fur. Between his ability to leap and clamber about like some sort of demonic gibbon, and his ability to lift a fully grown boar and beat its brains out against a nearby tree, I'm confident he'll be useful. Lethaface is one of Burna's mob- fire's supposed to work a treat on walking corpses, isn't it? Finally, Trog's a newcomer, and he'll be an extra hand when things get rough... something about him makes me nervous, though.

The fort's built over a small creek that visibly flows out from under it. I'm guessing that the fort used it as a kind of natural sewer when there were living people in it; I figure we can get in easily if we climb through the water and then up the latrine dropholes. This isn't gonna be pleasant, but it should give us an easy way in...

***

The night air was cool and filled with the noise of bats and the groan of zombies as skeletons marched in silent ranks as ghouls loped through the grounds looking for dead flesh to eat, but all ignored the dilapidated brick building at the rear of the fort, and didn't notice that something was happening inside the darkness as the silence was interrupted by the sound of scratching, banging and muffled curses rising from underneath the rotted wooden seats before smoke began to rise up from the seats, and if anything intelligent was present, they would have felt a distinct rise in the icy temperature.

Of course, even the undead noticed when the latrines exploded. Shards of brick rocketed through the air, gouging craters in the stone of the fort, in the ground, smashing bones and tearing rotten flesh, causing more than a few of the dead in the yard to collapse back into death. From the proverbial ashes of the latrine emerged a sodden, and indisputably female, Ranma Saotome, covered from head to toe in substances of a nature best left undescribed and doing her best to appear stoic, even as her equally befouled companions swore and cursed and clawed their way into the relatively fresh air beyond.

"If anyone ever brings this up again, I'm gonna kill them." Ranma said calmly. Not only was she caked in stuff she didn't want to know what it was, not only was she chilled to the bone after fighting through the icy stream to reach the dropholes, she couldn't even return to her true gender, as there was nothing that could have possibly held hot water and kept it at the relevant temperature long enough to be worth using.

"We'z gonna help." Gragtar snarled, grabbing a handful of dirt and using it to try and rub off some of the worst of it. He snarled in rage as Da Ape suddenly shook himself off, spattering the others with gobbets of flung muck. Any thoughts of the group about fighting amongst themselves were drowned out by a chorus of hungry moans and unearthly hisses, skeletons and zombies approaching the living with only one thought in whatever passed for their minds.

"Oh shit- run!" Ranma commanded.

It didn't occur to Ranma until he was long out of earshot that he didn't say where they should meet up, to which the boy currently in a girl's body shrugged, they'd find each other eventually as a fist lashed out and smashed in the face of a hunchbacked thing with needle-like teeth and filth-crusted daggers at the end of each bony finger while more loped forward with howls when the earth suddenly swallowed him up, Ranma's last sight that of Gragtar barreling through the stained glass window of a chapel, Da Ape climbing into a window, Strika diving clumsily under a falling grate while Lethaface and Trog went down a tunnel each before the world went black and the howls faded away as Ranma fell.

As she grabbed a chain hanging from a hook and arrested her descent, Ranma looked back up at the moonlight shining through the hole, "Good luck guys." With that she began climbing the chain down to the bottom. Meanwhile, in the chapel, Gragtar was contemplating the odds before him as dead eyes stared back at his beady red ones.

A human would have been able to recognize the place as a shrine to Sigmar, deified founder of the Empire, though sadly decayed and horribly defiled by the undead who now ruled the fortress. The zombies now eyeing the orc with mindless hunger in their eyes were likely all that remained of the former worshippers, who had come here to pray for the protection and blessings of the Hammerer. Gragtar, however, was ignorant of that. All that he knew was that he was cornered by maybe twenty or thirty zombies, and he had no weapons- he'd been picking and losing random weapons pretty much since Ranma had shown up, unable to find one that suited him, and he'd lost his most recent one in the swim upriver. There were only two words that accurately summed up this situation...

"Aw... zog." Gragtar grumbled. But orcs are nothing if not resourceful, and are capable of turning just about anything they lay their hands on into a weapon of some description. As the first dozen or so zombies lurched towards him, he grabbed a broken pew and swung it like a club, sending them flying, some of them collapsing from the sheer force of the blow. Twice more he swung it, knocking the shambling corpses around like ninepins as he did, before the battered piece of furniture broke up under the pressure. But it had survived long enough to give him some breathing room, and now he saw something that could be his salvation.

The statue of Sigmar Heldenhammer had been almost totally destroyed, the face clawed off, unspeakable filth spattered on it, but it was still standing. More to the point, its one intact hand still clutched a double-headed warhammer. Though orcs did not, as a rule, appreciate elegance and finery in their weapons, leaning far more towards the practical side of things, even Gragtar felt a surge of appreciation at its glittering, wickedly studded steel face, its ivory platings with gold inlaid engravings of the twin-tailed comet, its well-made handle... more than its beauty, however, was the fact that it looked fully functional, not merely ceremonial. Not noticing that it seemed strangely untouched by the desecration of the chapel, and unlikely to care even if he had, Gragtar ran for the altar, shoulderbarging and bodychecking any zombies that tried to get in his way in a fashion that would have made any rugby referee send him off for unnecessary roughness, brutally ripping the hammer from its place of lingering honor. It would be nice to say that, upon taking the hammer up, Gragtar found himself admiring its precise craftsmanship, its elegant balance, its perfect weight... but that would require a level of eloquence and abstract thought that, sadly, was beyond most orcs. Gragtar's actual reaction would be more accurately expressed as a sudden deep feeling that this was **the** weapon he wanted to wield, that it was just right for him, which ultimately meant the same thing.

Grinning widely, all of his tusks bared in a frightful grimace, Gragtar turned to face the zombies, already pressing in on him from all sides. "WAAAAAAAGH!" He howled, hurling himself into the fray.

Da Ape snuffled around the room it had clambered into with idle curiosity, sniffing the barrels while poking and prodding the bones in the room to make sure that they weren't going to come to life, before he grabbed the arms and bashed them to pieces with raucous hoots. After getting bored, Da Ape shuffled over to the door and yanked it open to reveal a long staircase going both upwards and downwards. Since he had already been on the ground, Da Ape decided to go up instead but stopped as the sound of bone on stone and the moans of the dead reached his ears and he grunted, the fleshy ones made a nice squish but the meat was rancid, so he couldn't eat them.

So he should squish them and the bonies following them. Shambling back into the room, Da Ape scratched his furry head as he studied the barrels before he grabbed one and hefted it experimentally, testing the weight, and then smiled as he lifted it above his head and without any preamble save for a series of barks that would likely been a warcry in any other language, he threw the barrel down the stairs and waited as it banged down the steps, before hooting as he heard the crash of splintering bone and the wet squelch of rotten meat before grabbing another barrel and sending it down the stairs, and another, and so the rain of barrels came down with Da Ape beating his chest like some demented Donkey Kong until the sound of something approaching from upstairs made him pause. Da Ape went to grab another barrel, only to find the room empty. Searching frantically, Da Ape glanced back at the window and immediately made his escape just as several skeletons burst into see Da Ape scrabble upwards and out of sight.

"Oi! Who's that climbing up the wall?" Strika looked up to see a gangly black shape climbing up the tower and smiled toothily at Lethaface's exclamation.

"Looks like dat Ape's worth his stink! Oi Letha! Keep dem rottin' gits offa me while I get Da Ape down 'ere!" The mask-wearing orc nodded and threw another flammable concotion at the horde of zombies and ghouls approaching their impromptu position as Strika clambered up onto a more visible position between the ruined walls.

"OI! OI YA STINKIN' APE! OVVA 'ERE! OI! YA DEF OR WAT! OI!" Strika snarled and hefted his weapon before taking aim. The arrow hissed across the expanse and clipped a tile near one of Da Ape's large paws, causing it to grunt in confusion before looking around to spot Strika waving his arms. With another grunt the black-furred orc began clambering towards him as Strika notched another arrow and fired into the approaching horde.

"Okay, got 'is attention!" A roar made him turn and the orc grimaced, "Aw zoggin' Mork! Keep 'em offa us Letha, I gotta get dat stupid Ape outta trouble!"

The masked orc nodded his assent as Strika began firing on the giant bats attacking Da Ape who, if Ranma could see him in action now, would have reminded him of an old American movie as the strange orc batted and swung at the flying beasts.

"Take yer time why don't ya? It'z only a few HUNDRED ZOGGIN DEAD 'UNS COMMIN' TA EAT US!" Strika ignored the panicked and angry shout of Lethaface as he continued firing arrow after arrow into the cloud of bats as Da Ape finally got it through his head to keep heading towards the two orcs.

Looking back behind him, Strika winced at the horde of groaning, moaning undead clambering over the ashes and burning corpses of their fellows before returning his attention to his shooting before a whooping roar made him look up as a black shape leapt over his head and landed in the middle of the horde, rotten limbs and spoiled blood flying into the air as Lethaface breathed a sigh of relief as Strika dropped back down from his position and cuffed the orc.

"Don't start relaxin' yet ya git! We need ta find da boss!"

Ranma, meanwhile, was having no better luck then any of his followers. He and his sole companion, the one-eyed newcomer named Trog, had found themselves before a door that looked vaguely important, as far as Ranma could tell in this foreign bulding style and this dilapidated ruin of a building. The main reason that Ranma figured it might be important was this; a sextet of armored skeletons, standing a perpetual vigil outside of it, which had immediately clattered forward to attack the two living intruders.

These were clearly not the mindless automatons that Ranma had been fighting up until now. For a start, their movement was, while somewhat stiffer and more awkward than a living being's, far smoother and less jerky then that of an "ordinary" walking skeleton. The armor was some sort of ancient looking scale mail; many small, overlapping plates of verdigris-caked bronze or copper, covered in dust and cobwebs and ash and what looked like old blood. Their weapons were crude, heavy-looking handaxes and shortswords of dull, weathered iron - though they had a strange gleam to them that made Ranma feel uneasy, seeming to physically chill the air as they swung back and forth in an attempt to cut him open. Ranma's own long-borrowed sword had been shattered when he had carelessly used it to block a diagonal swing, though he would never be able to tell if it was poor maintenance (fighting with weapons was one thing; how to look after them wasn't something Ranma was so skilled with) or if he had somehow underestimated the strength of his opponent, but it hardly mattered; Ranma was not defenseless so long as he had limbs to strike with, and against a foe that was all bones and armor, he doubted that a cutting weapon would do much good anyway.

Instead, he went back to basics, punching and kicking while doing his best to avoid being cut or stabbed - it really brought to mind memories of fighting with Mousse. He had already plucked the head off of one of the armored skeleton things (that's what it got for not wearing a helmet) and smashed its legs with a sweep-kick, and it had stopped moving since then, though he didn't know if it was dead. Or whatever counted for dead with things like these. A second armored skeleton was apparently trying to decide whether it wanted to use its large, coin-shaped shield or its axe with its left hand, Ranma having pulled its right arm off. Trog was merrily beating a third on its heavily-dented, formerly bird-winged helmet with a large bronze handbell that Ranma didn't know if he had retrieved from Wurzen or if he'd found somewhere in the ruins of the fortress, making one hell of a din and causing the armored skeleton to look as miserable as it could, as if it no longer cared about fighting and just wanted the orc to stop it. Ranma certainly wished the noise would stop, though he had to admit he was probably making just as much of a racket, seeing as how he'd just slid under a fourth skeleton, grabbed it by the legs, hoisted it off the ground and was using it as an impromptu ball and chain, spinning around wildly with it outstretched in his arms and trying his best to careen into the remaining two skeletons. When Trog was forced to drop his bell and jump for it moments before Ranma ended up smashing into Trog's victim, Ranma decided to chalk that up in the "win" column.

The end result of Ranma's little impromptu whirlwind was a dizzy human, a somewhat bruised orc, and scattered bones and battered metal everywhere. Ranma shook his head to try and regain his equilibrium, standing at the center of a tangle of wreckage as Trog warily approached him. "Since when do humies drink fightin' juice?" He demanded.

"Fighting juice? What's that?" Ranma asked.

"Then 'ow come yoo woz all spinny just now?" The orc asked, twirling his finger around in circles as a reference to how Ranma had just been acting.

"Because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Can we go now?" Ranma asked sarcastically.

"Dat's fine wid me, but I fink he'z got uvva plans." Trog said.

Ranma didn't waste time asking who Trog was referring to, or where he was coming from. He just leapt, straight up, as a spear suddenly plunged into the stone where he'd been standing. With the ease of long practice, Ranma flipped gracefully in midair, landing neatly just in front of where the ancient weapon had struck, turning around so that he was facing his foe; another armored skeleton, slightly larger, with more ornate armor and the battered remnants of crude jewelry - tarnished metal bracelets on its wrists and upper arms, a necklace that was falling apart around its neck. It nodded solemnly at him, withdrawing its spear and bracing itself to fight.

"So, the big boss wants to tangle, eh?" Ranma smirked, then scowled as he saw Trog moving out of the corner of his eye. "You touch that bell and I'm gonna cram it where the sun don't shine!" He bellowed.

At that instant, the skeletal chieftain -Ranma knew it had to have been some kind of authority figure in life- attacked, lunging at Ranma with a speed that would have been impressive... to someone who wasn't used to beating on the likes of Tatewaki Kuno as light exercise. Ranma's weakest "rival" could stab and thrust hard and fast enough that the resultant air pressure could shatter stone; inhuman as this undead warrior's speed may have been to the locals, he might as well have broadcast his moves in advance. Ranma effortlessly twisted around the (stone?) spearhead, latching onto the shaft with a grip like iron and using it to both hold his foe in range and as a balancing aid as he drew back one leg and promptly began kicking out as hard and fast as he could, beating a minute-long percussive tattoo on his foe's armored chest, bones cracking apart and metal being mangled, until his repeated blows loosened the undead's grip on its weapon and sent it flying back into the stone wall with enough force to crater it on impact. Ranma could have shrugged off such a blow as a minor hurt; his opponent, amazingly, was broken and cracked like crazy, but remained mostly intact, slowly collapsing onto the floor even as Ranma made a flamboyant spin of the spear and struck a smug victory pose.

"Flawless victory."

"Uh...boss? Who ya talking to?"

Ranma facefaulted at Trog's question before getting to his feet and cuffing the orc. "Spoil my moment why don't ya?" He looked at the spear in his hand before turning his attention to his opponent, "Not a bad fight, what with you being dead and all, think I'll keep this if you don't mind."

Trog looked confused again. "Uh boss? He's dead, he can't talk."

Ranma closed his eyes, counted to three, and then cuffed the orc again. "Shut up nitbrain. Come on, the others have to around here somewhere."

A wall collapsed inwards and the pair went into stances as Gragtar strode through, brushing dust and masonry off his armour with his free hand while hefting his hammer onto his shoulder. The former warboss and the new warboss studied each other for a moment before Ranma smirked. "Nice hammer, didn't think you were into gold frills."

Gragtar grunted. "Better den dat stick yer carrying."

A door was kicked in and Lethaface poked his head in. "Bout zoggin time! Oi, Strika, get Da Ape in 'ere, we've found da Boss!"

Strika appeared seconds later, dragging Da Ape along with a leather cord tied around his neck.

"Thank Gork! Zoggin Ape's acting loony as dat gobbo!"

Ranma shook his head; when anyone in his Waaagh said 'dat gobbo', they always meant Bitz and his split personality Gubbins. But then, it was the truth as Ranma stepped over to Da Ape and gave him a solid whack on the head.

"Right, now that we're back together, lets find whoever's in charge and kick their ass!" The orcs roared out their approval as they left the room.

With a dramatic flourish, Ranma hurled the doors open (that they subsequently broke their hinges and dangled loosely was not intended, but he rolled with it), striding through with his new spear brandished and the orcs behind him. "Alright, where are ya, ya blood-sucking monster!" He shouted.

"Ahhahahahahaaa! Well now, it seems that there is something interesting in this rabble after all." A figure appeared at the top of a set of stairs, the moonlight showing that it was a female wearing a tattered dress that more than likely would have been incredibly expensive and beautiful as the figure began to descend.

"How intriguing, tell me human, how is it that you came to be the leader of these greenskins? How could a mere mortal bring a few of these beasts of overly-developed muscle and very little brain into his employ?"

"They aren't that dumb." Ranma proclaimed, somewhat offended by the insult offered to his followers. "And I'm no mere mortal, neither." He added. "Are you the local bloodsucker? I've got a bone to pick with you."

"Indeed, I am the local 'bloodsucker' in question. Look upon my beauty and know the face that you will serve for all eternity!" At that the vampire stepped out into the open and the orcs recoiled at the withered, ravaged face, warped into a faintly animalistic form that possessed almost no human features and certainly no beauty at all.

"Woah! Damn, that's ugly!" Ranma blurted. He hadn't exactly been a paragon of diplomacy in Nerima, and after several weeks with the orcs and goblins, who said their minds and took no offense, his capacity to watch what he was saying in order to avoid sticking his foot in his mouth was at an epic low.

The vampire hissed in rage, "Watch your tongue filthy vermin! I'll have you know that I am the envy of the region, men have fallen to their knees upon seeing my visage!"

"Iz yoo kiddin'? Dat's like some whole new kinda zoggin' ugly!" Gragtar replied incredulously, the other orcs and the human echoing him with their agreement.

The vampire yowled in rage, "Miserable wretches, you will pay for your insults! Go my servants! Tear the filthy greenskins to pieces. You human, I will savour your heart for years to come!"

Roar sounded as doors fell inwards and a pack of howling, whooping creatures charged the orcs as the vampire swooped down towards Ranma.

With a single, smooth motion, Gragtar swung his new warhammer in a horizontal strike, timed perfectly so that the metal head connected with the fleshy head of the charging ghoul. The air was split by the distinctive sound of bone not merely cracking, but shattering like an egg that had been thrown against a stone wall. The left side of its head bulged obscenely as the force of the blow to its right temple displaced bone and brain, the skin stretching taut and then rupturing, black gore and fragments of bone hurtling into the air like an obscene mini-geyser, the ghoul collapsing truly lifelessly to the floor even as Gragtar recovered from the swing and prepared to strike again. Beside him, Da Ape seized another ghoul by the waist and lifted it clear off the ground, screeching wordlessly as it swung it up and down and battered it remorselessly against the floor, dashing the life from it. Strika's crossbow bolt zipped across the room to bury itself in a third ghoul's eye, while Lethaface reluctantly put away the crude firebombs to brandish a battered cleaver and take it to the flesh of his prey.

The vampire was not idle either, her claw-like hands whipping and slashing, trying to gouge out the eyes of the human in front of her as Ranma nimbly sidestepped and ducked her attacks while smiling slightly, he had been here for weeks, uniting vicious and dangerous creatures that had all the intelligence and common sense of children mixed with rabid animals, gone up against freaks who used live humans as cannon ammunition, and laid siege to a town held by what appeared to be normal humans, and during it all he had felt slightly homesick.

Now he was up against someone who frankly, reminded him of Akane, so he couldn't help but taunt, "Wassa matter? Slowing down tomboy?"

The vampire shrieked loud enough to crack the few intact windows remaining and pressed her attack with murder in her eyes.

Fortunately for Ranma, this was neither a very experienced vampire, nor one of those that had focused on the branch of dark powers known as "Martialle"; had his foe been such a creature, he would have found himself a lot harder pressed then he presently was, and may even have lost in his initial bout of overconfidence. However, luck was on his side; the creature he fought was young, inexperienced, had focused on its ability to control the undead, and, ultimately, had suffered mental degeneration since receiving the Dark Kiss of Undeath. Its claws lashed and rent wildly, Ranma having both the skill to dodge and evade such unskilled strikes and the speed that he couldn't be overwhelmed like her usual victims. Ranma didn't bother going at her with his bare hands this time; while he did use the occasional opportunistic kick, mostly he used his new spear, striking with the flat and the butt, using it like a cudgel or, occasionally, like a glaive, spinning it so that the edges of the spearhead cut and sliced into the vampire's dead, withered flesh.

"Now, this is fun and all, but I've got a Waaagh to keep moving, and so I don't have time to mess around with you." Ranma told her.

"Insolent meat! Do you suggest this is some sort of game?" The corpse-hag shrieked.

"Yeah, and playtime..." He suddenly spun in a kick that caught her across the stomach, staggering her, then flipped his spear around, the butt catching her under the chin and lifting her head, then drove it forward as the rotation brought the point around to face her, ramming it with a ghastly dry-sticks-snapping sound square into her chest. "...Is over." He finished.

"Heeeergh, you think...you can be so carefree? You lead an orc Waaagh, war and death is all you will know, and you will be a pariah to the humans of these lands, a savage no better than the greenskins you lead. I ruled over this place, what will you rule over?"

Ranma shrugged, "Don't know, don't really give a damn." With another snapping sound, the spearhead sliced the vampire's head clean from its shoulders as he turned to the others, Gragtar glaring at Trog who seemed preoccupied with playing with the still snapping head of his former opponent, "All right then. Lethaface." The orc in question looked up as Ranma indicated the walls around him, "I want this place torched."

As the orc ran off to get flammables, Gragtar frowned, "Ya didn't burn the humie town, why burn this place down?"

Ranma snorted, "It's none of your business, but I'll answer anyway." He sent a calm stare at the orc, "It's because I feel like it." Gragtar grunted and rolled his shoulders as Ranma sniffed, smelling smoke.

"All right you gits; back to the Waaagh, I've got some lazy asses to kick into moving out, and this place will make for some good marching light. Move!" The group started moving as Lethaface appeared from a doorway that was belching smoke into the musty air.

By the time the group was on the pass back to the Waaagh, the castle was ablaze, a torch illuminating the land for miles around.

None of the group so much as glanced backwards at it; they would be marching past soon enough.

_Onwards and onwards; don't know quite where Ranma is going to end up going, but we figure it'll be a hell of a ride getting there._


End file.
